Search

Category: Skillshop

Events Skillshop

SKILLSHOP RECAP: THE RISE OF THE MARKETING GODZILLA

Ad Club Of Buffalo

Mid-December of 2020, Mower’s very own Matt Babiarz joined AAF Buffalo to host a skillshop on The Rise of the Marketing Godzilla. The presentation was held at Lemur Studios and was presented virtually to the attendees in a therapy-like format. But many of you may be thinking, what the heck is a Marketing Godzilla?

By definition: Living in the Era of The Marketing Godzilla consists of a landscape ruled by merciless but necessary marketing leaders, born out of crisis in a hyper-competitive, unforgivingly chaotic corporate environment, where humans are interchangeable resources, a sense of reality can be challenged, and a result can only be accepted if it has been forecasted.

Matt kicked-off the presentation getting the audience’s opinion on their perception of crisis; discussing the difference between danger and opportunity. This soon led to the ultimate conclusion that people work too hard, for too long, for too little, which creates the dreadful Marketing Godzilla. The audience got involved via Zoom chat to share their experiences and thoughts on topics such as stress in the workplace, compulsion loops and the anxiety caused by notifications.

A few additional key takeaways include:

  • According to the American Psychological Association, 70% of workers were found to be stressed in 2020, an increase of only 9.8% during the pandemic
  •  A McKinsey study showed that 39% of time is being spent on job-specific tasks, and 42% of time is spent on answering emails and meeting internally
  • Notifications on our phone and email are indeed causing anxiety, causing individuals to feel the need to respond almost instantly

Although we weren’t able to get together as a group, we’d like to send a big thank you to Matt for taking the time to chat with us virtually. We also wanted to send a shoutout to Lemur Studios for helping make the event happen and for everyone who attended. For more info on all of our programming for the club year, check out AAFBuffalo.com/events.

AdWeek Skillshop

ADWEEK 2020 RECAP: CRAFTING TRADEMARKS SKILLSHOP

Ad Club Of Buffalo

We put some marketers and an attorney in a [virtual] room and kicked off this year’s AdWeek with a Skillshop hosted by Katie Markert, an attorney within Barclay Damon LLP’s Branding, Trademarks, and Copyrights practice group. 

Katie laid down the law to help us understand what goes into developing a strong brand name, and it turns out, not all trademarks are created equal—they actually reside on a spectrum. She walked us through this spectrum and showed us, from worst to best, how trademarks can be created with strong legal backing. From generic trademarks to the fanciful, Katie described the varying levels of trademark strength and gave some real-world examples. 

Another big takeaway…beware of genericide! Did you own a “return top” as a kid? How about a “yoyo”? Well Katie asked us if we could think of the generic term for yoyo, and we were stumped. Turns out, YO-YO was actually a brand name trademarked by Duncan Co. in 1932 for “return top” toys. This product eventually fell victim to genericide due to a faulty trademark registration, and all of these toys could legally be referred to as yo-yos, and they were. The name continued to spread as the generic term, and thus, you probably owned a yo-yo as a kid–not a “return top”.

Katie concluded her SkillShop with a Q&A that answered our deepest branding and trademark questions. Thank you Katie! Learn more about Katie’s legal experience here.

Skillshop Stuff

Skillshop Recap: How to Plan a Fire (not Fyre) Festival

Greg Pokriki

Last week, the Ad Club hit the Southtowns with a visit to 42North Brewery, where we got to chat about branding and music festivals with Jennifer Brazill (Borderland Festival Producer) and John Cimperman (EVP, Match Marketing, 42North Brewery Owner, and Borderland Festival Producer).

The trip was well worth it—not just because of the delicious beer (thanks 42North!) and the snacks that our ravenous post-work bellies enjoyed—but because it ended up being a great discussion about all the stuff us ad geeks love to nerd out on. We chatted music festival planning, branding, video production, what it takes to create authentic experiences, managing crazy deadlines, and understanding audiences, to name a few. Creatives and pros chimed in from all walks of career, which allowed for an open-ended conversation with some great challenges and questions.

Sometimes it’s not the big event with the famous speaker that energizes you to get back to the grind, but a meet up with your friends and colleagues over a topic, a beer, and a fun location. This event was quite invigorating and certainly has us craving the summer and festival season. See you at Borderland!

 

AdWeek Blog Events Skillshop Stuff

Recap: Tade Shows & Exhibits Skillshop

Lauren Carmer

A few times a year, AAF Buffalo likes to engage our membership with interesting, informative Skillshops. These sessions feature topics that can range from copyright law to analytics to trade shows and more. On Monday, October 15th, Hadley Exhibits kicked off AAF Buffalo’s Ad Week with a Skillshop of their own. The firm hosted more than two dozen club members, presenting “Trade Shows in the Age of Digital.”

Our members took an in-depth look at what’s new in the fun and engaging world of B2B marketing. Our board member, Alex Keogan, hosted the night with an interactive presentation detailing what companies and agencies can do to really engage their or their client’s audience before, during, and after a trade show. Following Alex’s talk, the attendees took a tour of the 180,000 square foot facility where Hadley Exhibits designs, fabricates, and stores displays.

Keep an eye out for our next AAF Buffalo Skillshop in January 2019!

  

Skillshop

Skillshop Recap: Analyze This

Jenna Hutzler
by Brittany Klotzbach

“Google Analytics” is a familiar term in the marketing industry, but what does it even mean? This past Tuesday, Brett Perla from Crowley Webb, an expert on this topic, dropped some analytic knowledge on a group of twenty curious students. This course was a 101 level tutorial on the basics, associated terms, and importance of Google Analytics.

Although there are several different website analysis resources, Google Analytics is free and user-friendly which was why this was the focus during this skillshop. Brett began the lesson by teaching us how to create an account, and then led us through the entire process of loading our website information and learning how to utilize this tool to get a good glance of user interaction with a website. The ultimate goal is to make sure your website is working in an optimum way. Brett was very thorough in defining the various associated terms (i.e. session, users, new users, bounce rates, etc.). During this terminology lesson, I specifically learned that a session is a visit; users refer to unique visits; and bounce rates refer to when a user does not engage with the site during their visit.

Brett also showed us the various ways you can run reporting. The main tracking for reporting, which you can set to run a report at any time-period, includes audience, acquisition, behavior, and conversion. Your audience reporting would focus on demographic statistics or geographic locations; this helps determine who your users are that are going to your website. AdWords are another reporting function to help create a robust search for knowing what keywords on your site best trigger interaction. The behavior reporting tracks interaction on the website and the functions or pages within the website that are most effective. Lastly, conversion refers to significant interaction or deeper action on the website. This includes a goal for the final destination on the website (cart check-out, “contact us” page, etc.), as well as tracking duration someone is on your website.

This member-only event was our initial Skillshop of the season, and I can say as one of the attendees that I certainly learned a lot in a short period of time. Since I do not often work on digital projects, it was a fresh perspective on the importance of website tracking and how companies are constantly reviewing statics about their website through analytic programs to enhance user experience.

Blog Events Skillshop

Skillshop Recap: Public Relations 101

Dan Nesselbush
by Andrew Bevevino

“So what exactly do you do?” That’s a question that a lot of PR people get. PR is multifaceted to say the least, so it’s tough to put your finger on.

But, if you had to describe it, what would you say? Luckily, Martin Davison Public Relations employee Kelsey Hanks and I recently hosted Skillshop: Public Relations 101 at The Martin Group offices to discuss what PR encompasses.

What do PR people actually do?

There are many PR practices, so it’s difficult to come up with a one sentence definition. However, we spoke briefly about several areas that PR practitioners work within on a regular basis.

  • Advocacy: If an organization needs help gaining community and/or influencer support for a certain initiative, PR people can help craft the messaging around that cause or initiative by writing speeches and talking points, organizing forums or community meetings, placing stories with the media or administering media training.
  • Content marketing: When we talk about content marketing, we’re referencing blogs, podcasts, infographics or other content-based pieces of communications. This content has some sort of value for consumers (i.e. education or entertainment), and PR people help create that content and the strategies for promoting it.
  • Internal communications: Internal PR is useful for keeping employees satisfied and informed. A good example of internal PR is a company newsletter detailing notable employee news and company updates and accomplishments. PR people are often tasked with keeping tabs on company news and creating internal promotional materials.
  • Crisis management: When something happens that could damage a company’s reputation, its often the job of PR practitioners to minimize or eliminate that damage. Doing so requires careful crafting of a strategic message that is relayed through press conferences, media relations and various other PR tactics.
  • Social media: You can use social media to accomplish many of the same goals that accomplish with more traditional PR. You can use social to promote content you create internally or for clients (i.e. blogs, podcasts), or you can spread positive buzz through the various social media channels and tools.
  • Media relations: Media relations = getting your clients in the news. This is what a lot of people think about when they reference PR. If you’re pitching stories about your clients to reporters or bloggers, you’re practicing media relations.

These are just a few areas within PR that we discussed during the workshop. There are many more, and their applications vary depending on the situation.

What is newsworthy/pitching basics

We took a bit of a deeper dive into media relations and discussed what makes a story newsworthy as well as some basics for media pitching.

There are several aspects of a story that make it newsworthy. Human interest, awards, product launches, major accomplishments and original content are all good examples of characteristics that might catch a reporter’s eye.

But, when pitching a story to the media, you always have to make sure you have a good angle. The angle is the story’s point of relevance or uniqueness. Without a good angle, your story will be glanced over. During the workshop, we outlined strategies to finding a good hook, as well as some basic steps to reaching out to the news media.

10 ways to promote your brand or event

If you’re having a big event or launching a new product, you’ll definitely want some PR to spread the word. We talked about ways to promote your event or product using PR, and I’d lay those out for you now, but I’m sure you’d rather just look at this artsy infographic that details PR activations for those occasions.

We talked about a few other subjects during our presentation at The Martin Group, but these are some of the broader points we spent a little more time on. All in all, we had some solid conversation about PR basics that the attendees seemed to find interesting based on the feedback I received.

Thanks to all who came! We really enjoyed giving the presentation, and we hope to see you at more AAF Buffalo events in the future.

Blog Skillshop Stuff

Skillshop Recap: Lights, Camera, Action, Edit

Dan Nesselbush
By Jaime Applegate

Last Thursday, Pegula Sports & Entertainment helped us bring in our new membership year with a video production Skillshop. Joe DeBenedictis and Travis Carlson took us on a crash-course in developing, producing, creating and even editing a short video. They started out the night telling us their stories and showcasing a few of their most recent works. We learned that in as little as 30 seconds, a story can unfold through sights, sounds and movement to convey certain emotions to the viewer. But 30 seconds of video takes much longer to create and Joe and Travis took us through each step. By the end of the night, they created a minute and a half video to demonstrate what we learned (with the help of a few lucky attendees!).

video-skillshop-photo_web

Travis, a videographer with PSE, took us through the fundamentals of story including the “Four P’s” – People, Places, Plot, and Purpose. Each point plays an important role in making “the story that you want to see” and should be considered when developing the narrative. He then took us through the secrets of the camera and demonstrated numerous lighting techniques to evoke certain sentiments about the characters. This is where the attendees really got to engage in this Skillshop – Travis and Joe chose “actors” from the crowd and described the plot for our new reality short – “The Breakfast Show.” Joe produced and Travis filmed the show keeping everyone entertained as we got a real look at what goes on behind the scenes. I will never look at a reality show the same way again!

Joe, a producer and editor at PSE, shared his tips and tricks in editing with Adobe Premiere Pro. He took us from starting a project in the program all the way to a near-finished piece, staying an extra hour for all the diehard editing fans. Joe finished up the video on his own time and uploaded to YouTube for all the attendees to enjoy: https://youtu.be/HNgltaB0oDw

Fav comment during our @AAF_Buffalo seminar: “you’ve ruined every reality show for me”. You’re welcome! #editing pic.twitter.com/FlCD9uRS2s

Attending events like this is always a confidence booster for me because it reminds me of my passion. The storyline, the filming, the lighting – it’s all fun to watch but what really got me excited was the editing portion of the night. As a designer, I’ve dabbled a bit in video editing programs but now I can’t wait to try some of the tips I learned. Attending workshops is a great way to learn about different areas of focus in our field. We have a few more planned for this year – make sure to take advantage of this great opportunity to add to your skillset!