What the Detroit Public Schools Can Teach Marketers By HBR.Org

Last month we served as judges on the North America Grand Effies Judging Committee. For those of you who do not know the Effies, they are considered the top awards for effective marketing communications around the world. Several rounds of judging submissions in different marketing categories result in a list of finalists for the "Grand Effie" or the award for the most effective marketing across all categories. That's what we were tasked to judge, along with nine other senior marketers representing both the creative and business sides of the industry.

The winner was a surprising choice. It wasn't a multi-million dollar television campaign for a Fortune 50 company, nor was it a digital media program for some new-age service. Instead, the Grand Effie award was given to the Detroit Public Schools (DPS) for a very simple, and cost-efficient word-of-mouth program to encourage student enrollment. Here's what they did.

With enrollment declining 80,000 students in the past 10 years, the school system faced a $305 million dollar deficit, forcing the Governor and The Michigan Department of Education to close 29 schools in 2009. This caused a major public outcry and highlighted the lack of confidence that residents placed in the DPS.

Leo Burnett Detroit created the "I'm In" marketing campaign to drive awareness of the positive aspects of the Detroit Public Schools as well as to halt the decline in enrollment. The main idea of this campaign is that the Detroit Public Schools have amazing and surprising opportunities behind them. This idea was brought to life by the creation of 172 blue doors representing the 172 public schools in the district. The doors appeared at various community events and in a large installation at Hart Plaza in downtown Detroit. Teachers, parents, and students brought the positive message of DPS success to local neighborhoods and encouraged residents to make a commitment to their local school. This commitment took many shapes, including a yard sign that featured a blue door and the phrase "I'm In". Residents could now see which of their neighbors were sending their children to the public schools, encouraging others to join the movement. With only $250,000 in paid media, the "I'm In" program generated over $1.5 million in free press coverage built awareness of the success stories from the DPS. Local and national celebrities, including Bill Cosby, used their status to support the "I'm In" program.

In the end, student enrollment in Detroit actually rose 6,500 in 2010. As a result, an incremental $49 million of funding was generated for DPS, keeping the school system financially viable. The program provided a beacon of hope for Detroit and its public school system.

Here are five lessons we tookaway from the Detroit Public Schools campaign and the finalists at this year's Effies:

1. Cause marketing matters more than ever. We live in a difficult world. Through these difficult times we expect brands to do more for our communities. If they take the lead, we'll reward them. The Detroit Public Schools campaign and Ford's "Drive One 4 UR School" are perfect example of this. People are excited to rally around important causes and brands that engage authentically in this effort can benefit too. The critical factor is to find a cause that authentically relates to your brand's equity and culture.

2. Taking the right posture in an economic downturn can bring success. The economic downturn caused a lot of suffering, but it also created an opportunity for brands to say, "We understand what you're going through and we are going to do something different as a result." Programs that did well in 2010 were ones that understood the impact of the economic crisis and responded to it with the appropriate voice and tone. For example, Hyundai brought compassion and assurance to a new car purchase by offering to refund your money if you lost your job.

3. Advertising is dead, long live advertising. There's a meme in the world of business that consumers do not like advertising and even more broadly, that marketing communications does not work. If there's anything that the finalists and the winner showed is that there's a very direct line from successful marketing programs to an organization's bottom line. The Detroit Public Schools turned around a 10 year decline in enrollment with some paint and lumber. Hyundai was the only car company to grow while their other competitors declined by up to 40%.

4. Resonance, resonance resonance. We live in a cluttered media ecosystem. For a message to break through, it needs to resonate with customers. That's what Apple did with "There's an App For That" campaign, where different iPhone applications were matched with corresponding print publications. For example, the advertisement in Gourmet magazine only promoted food related applications. Simple but powerful. The Detroit Public Schools took their message to the streets, neighborhoods, and local events frequented by the residents of Detroit.

5. Marketing means creating movements. There is no doubt about it that the most effective marketing programs are the ones that rally people, encourage them to serve as social voices for the brands, and make them feel like they are part of something greater.

The Detroit Public Schools is a brilliant example of all that works in marketing in 2010. It had a simple and emotionally compelling idea. It had disruptive and brilliant creative executions. And it leveraged the power of personal persuasion to generate outstanding results. As judges, we had to compare the impact of a national effort like Hyundai "Assurance" with a local effort like DPS's "I'm In." In the end, we made our decision based on the magnitude of the challenge. Many of the finalists required people to change their minds or make major purchases during an economic downturn. The DPS "I'm In" campaign encouraged over 6,000 more people to put their most precious possession on the line — their child's future. That's great marketing.

Shiv Singh is the Head of Digital for PepsiCo Beverages and a regular blogger at Going Social Now. Peter Carter is the Director of Brand Building Integrated Communications-Americas at P&G. To review the work and read the case studies of the campaigns mentioned visit their page on the Effies' site.

“Contact Us” Done Right : By Sanborn

Scott Ginsberg is a talented speaker and colleague in the National Speakers Association. I needed to ping him this morning so went to his website and clicked “contact us.”

I often hate the convoluted methodology used to capture information that turns a simple email into a royal pain. I don’t want to have to fill out a long from that goes to “info@” and wonder if my communication was ever received.

Scott does it right. He has one of the best, most straightforward contact pages I’ve ever seen. He makes it simple and gives you nine contact options, all direct to him. Check it out here.

Scott talks about how to network and connect, and he practices well what he teaches.

Six Secrets to Creating a Culture of Innovation

When IBM recently polled 1500 CEOs across 60 countries, they rated creativity as the most important leadership competency.

Eighty percent of the CEOs said the business environment is growing so complex that it literally demands new ways of thinking. Less than 50 percent said they believed their organizations were equipped to deal effectively with this rising complexity.

But are CEOs and senior leaders really willing to make the transformational moves necessary to foster cultures of real creativity and innovation?

Here are the six fundamental moves we believe they must make. In all my travels, I've not yet come across a single company that systematically does even the majority of them, much less every one.

1. Meet People's Needs. Recognize that questioning orthodoxy and convention — the key to creativity — begins with questioning the way people are expected to work. How well are their core needs — physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual — being met in the workplace? The more people are preoccupied by unmet needs, the less energy and engagement they bring to their work. Begin by asking employees, one at a time, what they need to perform at their best. Next, define what success looks like and hold people accountable to specific metrics, but as much as possible, let them design their days as they see fit to achieve those outcomes.
2. Teach Creativity Systematically. It isn't magical and it can be developed. There are five well-defined, widely accepted stages of creative thinking: first insight, saturation, incubation, illumination, and verification. They don't always unfold predictably, but they do provide a roadmap for enlisting the whole brain, moving back and forth between analytic, deductive left hemisphere thinking, and more pattern-seeking, big-picture, right hemisphere thinking. The best description of the stages I've come across is in Betty Edward's book Drawing on the Artist Within. The best understanding of the role of the right hemisphere, and how to cultivate it, is in Edwards' first book, Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain.
3. Nurture Passion. The quickest way to kill creativity is to put people in roles that don't excite their imagination. This begins at an early age. Kids who are encouraged to follow their passion develop better discipline, deeper knowledge, and are more persevering and more resilient in the face of setbacks. Look for small ways to give employees, at every level, the opportunity and encouragement to follow their interests and express their unique talents.
4. Make the Work Matter. Human beings are meaning-making animals. Money pays the bills but it's a thin source of meaning. We feel better about ourselves when we we're making a positive contribution to something beyond ourselves. To feel truly motivated, we have to believe what we're doing really matters. When leaders can define a compelling mission that transcends each individual's self-interest, it's a source of fuel not just for higher performance, but also for thinking more creatively about how to overcome obstacles and generate new solutions.
5. Provide the Time. Creative thinking requires relatively open-ended, uninterrupted time, free of pressure for immediate answers and instant solutions. Time is a scarce, overburdened commodity in organizations that live by the ethic of "more, bigger, faster." Ironically, the best way to insure that innovation gets attention is to schedule sacrosanct time for it, on a regular basis.
6. Value Renewal. Human beings are not meant to operate continuously the way computers do. We're designed to expend energy for relatively short periods of time — no more than 90 minutes — and then recover. The third stage of the creative process, incubation, occurs when we step away from a problem we're trying to solve and let our unconscious work on it. It's effective to go on a walk, or listen to music, or quiet the mind by meditating, or even take a drive. Movement — especially exercise that raises the heart rate — is another powerful way to induce the sort of shift in consciousness in which creative breakthroughs spontaneously arise.

These activities are only possible in a workplace that doesn't overvalue face time and undervalue the power of renewal.

Tony Schwartz is president and CEO of The Energy Project. He is the author of the June, 2010 HBR article, "The Productivity Paradox: How Sony Pictures Gets More Out of People by Demanding Less," and coauthor, with Catherine McCarthy, of the 2007 HBR article, "Manage Your Energy, Not Your Time." Tony is also the author of the new book "The Way We're Working Isn't Working: The Four Forgotten Needs that Energize Great Performance" (Free Press, 2010).

A Lesson in How to Make People Feel Special: John Baldoni Blog(Lead By Example Royal Encounter)

It is not often that we look to royalty for insight into how to demonstrate leadership in the modern age. So in our age of egalitarianism Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain stands as an exception. To overlook her ability to connect with people would be a shame. Wherever she visits she gives leaders a tutorial in how to make everyone she meets feel special.

In reporting on the Queen’s visit to the United Nations, Richard Quest, CNN’s U.K. reporter, commended the Queen for her extraordinary ability to make anyone who comes into contact with her feel quite at home. Quest experienced this first-hand when he welcomed the Queen to the dedication of CNN’s London studios in 2001. The Queen is not only able to make small conversation, says Quest, but she backs it up with a smile and eye twinkle that makes the person she is with feel special.

This ability to make people feel important is not solely a royal prerogative; many great leaders from Winston Churchill (who was Prime Minister when the Queen ascended the throne in 1952) to Franklin Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan had the gift of connectivity. I have seen corporate leaders connect in similar ways. And in conversing with folks afterward I know how special it was for them to be treated in such a personable manner.

The advantages of such up close and personal relations are two-fold. One, it makes the listener feel that he or she is worthy of attention. Two, it opens the door for conversation where a genuine exchange of ideas can occur. Granted this will not occur with royal schmoozes, but it can happen when CEOs or department heads make time to chat. So here are some suggestions for making it happen.

Smile first. The one with the bigger title must make the first move and the first move is to smile. Look like you are happy to be where you are, even when this visit is your tenth of the week. The act of smiling is way of putting others at ease.

Know what the issues are. People on the way up are often flummoxed by conversation with senior executives. In reality it is a two way street; more than a few executives have no idea what to say to front line employees. So it is important find out what the employees are concerned about and have a conversation about it.

Engage. Act, (and yes it is an act of leadership), like you want to be with the person. Put yourself into the conversation. Listen to what the other person has to say. Ask one or two open ended questions that get them talking. When done with a smile and cheery demeanor, you can do it quickly and without offending anyone.

Truth be told not every person in a position of authority knows how to make others “subordinate” to him or her feel welcome. More than a few leaders I know are quite shy and so hiding behind a wall of reserve comes naturally to them. Their standoffishness is as much a defense mechanism as anything else. Too many in the corporate world have risen to the top because they are good at tasks not with people; and so when they are in positions of senior leadership they lack social grace.

There is no excuse for acting aloof. Holding yourself apart from others sends the worst kind of signal, the one we typically associate with most royals. That is, I am better than anyone else. Such a sentiment might have worked for Elizabeth’s ancestors, but it simply will not do in today’s age.