Ole Miss Ad Club Presentation4.7.08

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Southern Growth Studio

• Clients call on the Southern Growth Studio when they are ready to leap, create new markets, or redefine the marketplace with a new product.

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What Southern Growth Studio Does • Southern Growth Studio is the only

company in the Mid-South to blend brand marketing and product innovation. » Delivers a unique fusion of creative talent and

business analysis to commercialize ideas, products, and services.

» Validates ideas, concepts, and plans that have the power to create markets and eliminate those that are not worth growing.

» User experience, utility, useful content, clusters of play.

» Why?

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Missing word?

• One dollar for the keen mind who will raise their hand and shout out the missing word.

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Advertising

• We tell prospective clients that “the last thing we want to do is to sell you an ad.”

• Why say such a thing? » Dare to guess?

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Clutter?

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Broken model?

• Pick one

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Context: Post-industrial warp speed layers of information and interests

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Content = Context, a testList three images from last slide

1. ___________2. ___________3. ___________

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Heretic or realist? You decide.

“Advertising is the tax you pay for unremarkable thinking.”

“Google can advertise better than the best agency.”

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Bands doing better than many brands

• “If you just stood up in a crowd and said your story—‘I came home, and this girl I was dating wasn’t there, and I was wondering where she was’—it’s not interesting, but give it a melody, give it a beat, build it all the way up to a haircut. Now people pay attention.” Jack White

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Why? The chopping block.

• Unlike the Record Companies, bands make a point to stay in touch with their audience.

• Audience is, and always will be, the chopping block.

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Audience now own the experience.• Control: people choose content and medium.• Class: people expect usable, useful products

from ethical companies who strive to innovate for the better.

• Connect: people want to play with brands, have a say, interact, mash up, syndicate, and opine.

• Choice: consumers and business audiences will not tolerate poorly designed products, weak services, or lacking insight, relevance, and delight.

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Shift in media

• Push• Pull• Connect with clusters

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So, why do brands matter?

• Why do brands matter in this mashed up, post-industrial, post-post-modern landscape that is half digital and half physical?

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Drucker as prophet

• We are now living into the wise insight that Peter Drucker proclaimed years ago:» “Business has only two functions--

marketing and innovation.” » Let’s look at some recent examples of

brand turnarounds or strong launches thanks to marketing and innovation.• Key words: useful, usable, play.

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Products + Community = Cool

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Products & widgets as marketing

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Play: mixing media interactions

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Usability: respect the audience

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Transformations make money

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16 quarters of consecutive growth

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Uploads, ratings, and participation

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Join the conversation:http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=8028397740

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Contact the Growth Engine

Michael Graber | Managing Partner662.236.8030 |

michael@southerngrowthstudio.com

READY TO GROW?