Oddballs in the Workplace

In a five-point memo written by David Ogilvy, the characteristics suggesting potential promotion in a person are listed. Ambition, enjoys working harder, an unorthodox or brilliant brain, engaging personality, and respect for the creative field. This article, “Want to Produce Craft Beyond the Norm? Hire Confident Oddballs,” proposes that another characteristic be added to the list; “the person is confidently peculiar.” This trait makes perfect since in the world of advertising, because what completely “normal” creative person do you actually know. If your school/work environment is in a creative field, take a look around and think to yourself if your co-workers are on the dry, boring side, or if they’re on the eccentric and quirky side of the spectrum. Being creative is a skill many lack.  Many of my friends beat to their own drum, and I think that’s why I’m friends with them. They aren’t afraid to be unique.

“The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.” I find this quote by Apple founder Steve Jobs to be extremely inspiring. In advertising it’s hard to make your campaign or message stand out from the clutter of all the others being thrown in our faces each day. You have to have a great deal of confidence in your work. It’s important to look at the world differently in order to come up with out of the box ideas. These “confident oddballs” are usually open to breaking the rules, which is when the real work gets done. Being around interesting people is what forms creativity in the work place.

The article can be found here.

Who Wouldn't Want Unlimited Vacation Time?

About 2% of U.S. companies have opted for flexible time off policies as opposed to the traditional policy of accruing vacation days for personal time off. With flexible time off there is no limit to how many days you decide to take off work. Project: WorldWide is an example of one company that has moved from PTO to FTO. “Everybody’s got a job to do, deadlines and targets are set, and you’re still expected to meet them,” says CEO Robert Vallee Jr. Similarly; college students have their fair share of work and play. On their own they must manage when they need to set time aside to complete homework assignments, and of course when they have time to socialize. Everything must still be completed and turned in by expected due dates. This policy makes employees focus on what needs to get done rather than on how many days they are working. Performance standards need to be clearly identified by employers when adopting such a policy. Interestingly enough, most FTO employees don’t take more or less time than they usually would under traditional policies. FTO might not fit every business. A lot of questions arise when considering implementing this new policy. If you were a team member, how would you feel seeing some people take off more time than you? Would you feel as though you’re working harder?

Argonaut is another company implementing the FTO policy. They feel as though you have to find the things that inspire you when working in a creative field such as marketing. Enjoying out of office time allows employees to pursue the things that enrich their creativity and thinking. “We trust you. We know you’re going to come in, get the work done and be responsible.” Giving employees this kind of freedom might even motivate them to do better with their work. So the question at hand is whether or not this policy is fully adaptable for our culture?

To learn more about companies implementing unlimited vacation time read the article on AdWeek.

Google Challenges Twitter with "Real-time Ads"

When social media users think of “real-time” engagement, they automatically think of Twitter. In recent years, Twitter has dominated the market of real-time advertising. A major partner of Twitter is the National Football League, which allows Twitter to sell video ads against highlights from games that are posted on the site. With all the success Twitter has had, other social media companies want a piece of the profits and have begun to implement their own user live engagement solutions.

Google announced last week that it is launching “real-time ads.” This would allow advertisers to serve video advertisements across YouTube, thousands of apps, and millions of partner websites during special events. Google plans to create ways to “time” mobile, video and display ads in conjunction with live events such as sports, political rallies, and award shows. Beta testing of this new platform has been conducted with companies such as EA Games and American Express, showing positive results. In addition, YouTube AdBlitz will once again combine all Super Bowl ads into a central location to allow consumers to watch and vote on. Google’s more aggressive actions for ad dollars during major events have stepped up the competition with Twitter, leaving advertisers with a more difficult choice when it comes to choosing a media outlet.

Check out Google’s “Madden Giferator” real-time ad

Does Twitter still have the advantage? With an already established user-base attracted to its real-time ads and major partnerships with companies, Twitter has a leg up on the competition. In addition, Twitter recently bought Periscope in order to increase its real-time service with live streaming videos added to the Twitter stream. The details and technicality of Google’s new live engagement still remain slightly unknown and confusing. Twitter on the other hand allows companies to specifically target users specifically interested in an event such as the Super Bowl. The use of hashtags identifies these individuals more precisely, adding to the effectiveness of real-time ads. Research has shown that users click on Twitter ads 20% of the time during special events, in contrast to 3% on regular days (Sloane). These numbers prove that live events are when Twitter advertisers best perform on the social media platform. Although Twitter has made efforts to expand its reach to consumers, Google has a massive footprint when it comes to Internet advertising. Google is an extremely powerful company, with a large reach and scale, especially with ad platforms. In saying this, could Google’s “real-time ads” stand a chance in the live engagement market?