How To Succeed in Advertising When All You Have Is A Pink Slip

“So we’re going to start our own agency, right?”

This was the question Steve Carli asked Kevin Lynch within the hour of learning that they and almost every other employee of Arian, Lowe & Travis were being let go. The Chicago-based agency’s largest client, a software and IT company trading on the NASDAQ, had let the agency’s CEO know they had no plans to advertise for the coming year. It was January 2001, and in the residue of a ruptured tech bubble, they’d decided not to renew the agency’s substantial retaining fee.

Lynch had been with the agency as its creative director for two years, and had helped lure Carli, a former coworker from Toronto about 18 months earlier to sign on as head of planning. Arian Lowe & Travis was a small creative boutique with a growing reputation and a series of significant new business wins. In fact, the very week Carli and Lynch were let go, Hewitt Associates, a $2 billion global business was set to name ALT as their agency of record.

But the departure of their largest client was too great a blow for the agency’s CEO, who opted to drastically scale back to a single-digit skeleton crew focusing on strategic consultancy.

When it was clear the agency wasn’t going to survive, Carli and Lynch approached the CEO with an interim plan to keep it afloat. “It was back-of-the-envelope kind of stuff,” says Carli, “But there were projections there that suggested it could be successful.” But since the plan involved giving Carli and Lynch greater control over the agency in the long term, it was summarily rejected.Which is why the pair found themselves at the neighboring tavern, discussing plan B over two pins of Guinness and Bass. “We talked about our choices,” says Carli, “There seemed to be only one.” Lynch says, opening their own agency “was decided before the beers arrived.”

Knowing they’d need a good art director, they brought Thomas Richie into the circle. Richie had just joined their soon-to-be former agency a couple months earlier, and had been a partner with Lynch earlier in their careers.

“Organizing meetings (if you can call them that) took place over lunches and in evenings over the next couple weeks,” says Lynch. “But when we ended our time with ALT, we walked out client-less.”

“This is an industry that doesn’t require much in terms of capital infrastructure,” says Carli. “It’s mostly bodies. Once we all agreed to work without pay, it was just a question of having enough money to pay for computers. Instant agency!”

The trio approached Hewitt Associates, who had been set to sign on with ALT the week layoffs were announced. Despite being told that the $2 billion business didn’t want to hire a start-up, Carli, Lynch and Richie gave Hewitt a capabilities presentation within a couple weeks. At the time, their agency had no name, no office space, and no employees. “As I look back, we were uncharacteristically confident,” says Lynch.

Hewitt was the first client to sign the team as their agency of record.

The team also pitched The Harvard Business Review, another former Arian, Lowe & Travis client. The first assignment was a buckslip (a small insert added to a mailing package), for which they were paid $200. “We should have kept the check, but we needed to lease a copier,” says Lynch.

The month-old start-up already had two significant wins. “The tough part was sharing a room with Kevin and Thomas in Boston,” says Carli. “Kevin snores.”

The three eventually decided to call the agency Hadrian’s Wall, after the 900-year old wall in Northern England built by the Roman Emperor Hadrian. Richie offered his newly mortgaged loft apartment as a base of operations for the first couple of weeks, though it became the agency’s home for the first year and a half.

“We got a chance to create a culture that felt nothing like an agency,” Lynch says. The name fit as Hadrian was a champion of art and architecture who established good communications within the empire, but as Lynch points out, “He was also a bisexual who murdered his gay lover, but everyone has their bad days.”

With the business philosophy Do good work for people you like, Hadrian’s Wall went on to hire new employees, securing office space and winning more new business. After five years, Hadrian’s Wall had generated a significant body of work and press to attract the attention of MDC Partners’ Zig in Toronto, which bought the agency in 2006, renaming it Zig Chicago.

It would have been fairly easy for Carli, Lynch and Richie to seek out jobs at other agencies after their former agency collapsed. They’re each talented, driven and well respected in the industry. The fact that Carli and Lynch approached their CEO before the bloodletting with an alternate plan shows starting an agency wasn’t necessarily their first choice (although Lynch says, “Steve was hell-bent on starting an agency sometime in his career.”). Instead, the three laid-off employees built something of value for themselves, and a lot of other people. And they had a pretty good time doing it.

Like early 2001, layoffs are again plaguing almost every industry. Each pink slip is a mountain of problems to the recipient, and the scramble to solve them can be overwhelming. Even if the stress of a sudden job hunt isn’t your panic du jour, there’s a good chance a career change or something like it is going to give you a series of problems to juggle. The answer may not always be to start your own company. But the right solution usually involves some fearless common sense.

“Honestly, we didn't do much that wasn't obvious, at least to us,” says Lynch. “It was basically led by us asking, ‘What kind of agency would we want to work at?’ When we wrote the philosophy, Do good work for people you like, it wasn't for business reasons. Rather, it just felt right.

“Further proof: As we were starting the agency, we asked people across the country who had started agencies, 1) what are you glad you did? And 2) what do you wish you ‘d done? The first person we contacted was Marshall Ross, who had a small shop of his own once. ‘Marshall,’ we said, ‘we're starting an agency.’ He replied, ‘Well duh. Why wouldn't you?’ Yeah, why wouldn't we? Common sense.”

Meadows vs. Lawns

I recently discovered this TED talk from Dennis vanEngelsdorp, who spoke to me about colony collapse disorder for a previous article. His meadows vs. lawns idea - which he addresses at the 12:50 mark - is pretty fascinating.



As a side note, a big thanks to those of you who've faithfully kept Archimedes' Tub in your Google Reader while I've transitioned to life in Switzerland. I have a couple of very cool new articles which I hope to post in the next couple of months. Thanks for staying tuned.

The Streets of Philadelphia

Whether capitalizing on the opportunity to bring a library into existence (an unapparent problem), or reforming the city watch (an obvious problem) Franklin began the solution process with the same initial step: observation.

Observing that Junto members turned to their personal books to settle disputes set off the chain reaction of thoughts that produced the group’s first library. And observing a poor constableship, a disproportioned fee placed on merchants and widows alike, and a watch full of ne’er-do-wells led Franklin’s crusade in police reform.

Observation leads to comprehension. And the more Franklin carefully observed, the more he understood. To solve a problem, or discover a hidden opportunity, it is imperative that we understand the situation.

It was his adept observation that initiated another of Franklin’s solutions:

The streets of eighteenth century Philadelphia were large, straight, unpaved and busy. In wet weather, they became quagmires for traffic. Living near the Jersey Market, Franklin “saw with pain the inhabitants wading in mud while purchasing their provisions.” And in dry seasons, they created a plague of unbearable dust.

In typical Franklin fashion, he began to talk and write on the subject until the city capitulated and paved the street with stone. But the street was only paved to a certain point, and Franklin noticed that whenever a passing carriage would make the transition from soil to stone, the jolt would shake mud and dirt off the carriage wheels and onto the cobblestone. The newly paved street continued to accumulate mud and “it was soon covered with mire, which was not removed, the city as yet having no scavengers.”

Franklin found a “poor industrious man” who was willing to sweep the street twice a week for a monthly fee of sixpence, to be paid collectively by each house. To make his a case for hiring this man, Franklin printed and distributed papers throughout the neighborhood. Following up a few days later, an agreement to employ Franklin’s candidate was unanimously signed. Franklin wrote, “this raised a general desire to have all the streets paved; and made the people more willing to submit to a tax for that purpose.”

With the streets paved and clean, Franklin turned his attention to lighting them. The streets of Franklin’s Philadelphia were illuminated by globe lamps – candles encased in spherical glass bulbs that were imported from London. As Franklin points out in his autobiography, the candle inside the fishbowl-type glass did not allow any air from below, so as the smoke circulated inside the globes, coating the glass and reducing the light. Wiping them clean became a daily chore.

Franklin proposed constructing lamps with “four flat panes, with a long funnel above to draw up the smoke, and crevices admitting air below, to facilitate the ascent of the smoke.” Franklin’s design allowed the lamps to burn brighter and longer. As Franklin pointed out, they also minimized damage control; where a cracked globe would be completely shattered, a single broken pane of Franklin’s design could be easily replaced. Franklin’s lamp designs can still be seen today in Independence Square, Philadelphia.

The problems Franklin solved might not have been seen as such. They were circumstances the majority never bothered to question. But Franklin's combination of observation and initiative that helped him not only challenge the status quo, but propose a solution to it.

Each of us have such opportunities all around us. It may be the way the school fund raiser's always operated. Or office protocol. Or the way we communicate with our own friends and families. We may not see problems in our own situations. But that shouldn't prevent us from finding solutions.

Boston, We Have A Problem

The Boston Red Sox aren’t an organization you’d think has a lot of problems to solve. They’ve won two of the last four World Series, and every home game has been sold out since 2003. But it's precisely their popularity and success that gave rise to a problem you might not expect: revenue. With seating for about 38,000, Fenway Park is one of the smallest ballparks in the Major Leagues. And with six players contracted at over $10,000,000 each, the Red Sox have the fourth highest payroll in the Majors. With sold out games, revenue would seem about capped. (Unless, maybe the price of a Fenway Frank doubled to $7.)
The obvious solution might have been to build a bigger stadium to sell more seats. The Yankees did just that announcing the 51,800-seat New Yankee Stadium, scheduled for completion in 2009. But this is Fenway, the oldest and one of the most venerated stadiums in sports. It's not exactly something you tear down without alienating generations of loyal fans.

So how do you bring in more money? The answer was Fenway Sports Group, a subsidiary of New England Sports Ventures, which also owns the Red Sox and Fenway Park. Creating partnerships and new business ventures with other companies in and out of Boston, Fenway Sports Group and the Red Sox are now drawing additional revenue worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Certainly more than a new stadium might have brought in. Here are just some of the sources of this new income:

• FSG launched the startup Fanfoto during the 2004 All-Star Week. Fanfoto photographers would wander Sox games and take photos of fans who could then order prints and even calendars of themselves at the games. When Fanfoto proved successful, FSG expanded the service to include 13 MLB, NBA and NHL teams and one race track.


• FSG became so successful in selling online advertising for the Red Sox, MLB Advanced Media contracted them to do it throughout the League.


• In 2005, FSG signed Boston College as a client. It has since expanded TV coverage and tripled Boston College sponsorships. The partnership, has recently announced the extension of the relationship through 2019.


• When attendance was slipping at the Garden for the Celtics and Bruins, FSG helped them by launching the Verizon Wireless Post-Game Concert Series, which included artists like Elliott Yamin, Plain White Ts and Natasha Bedingfield. The extended events not only sold more tickets, but more food and merchandise.
• FSG launched Red Sox Destinations which acts as a kind of sports travel agent, organizing trips to see the Red Sox play on the road. This year, FSG has scheduled 18 VIP travel experiences during the MLB regular season including one overseas.


• Roush Fenway Racing is Nascar’s biggest team, 50% of which was purchased by FSG last year.


• FSG organizes golf outings to high-end courses, and sells sponsorships of the PGA’s Deutsche Bank Championship.


• FSG acquired the Salem Avalanche, a minor league baseball franchise in the Class-A Advanced Carolina League. FSG provides operational, marketing and sponsorship sales support to the Avalanche's front office.


• Major brands like Dunkin' Donuts, Verizon Wirless, EMC Corproration and CVS/Pharmarcy now hire FSG as a consulting group to help them market their products through sports. FSG recently helped Dunkin’ Donuts launch their Iced Latte products in New England. Ads featured Red Sox Johnny Damon and Theo Epstein.

In solving their problem, FSG deliberately avoided conventional wisdom (building a new stadium) and became resourceful. Had FSG decided to build a new park, they would have had to deal with contractors, debts and irate fans who might see a new venue as sacrilege. Innovating and searching out new ways to bring in revenue; originally pedestrian (taking and selling fan photos during games), they became much more sophisticated (effectively become a full-service sports marketing consultancy), FSG found a way to bring in much more money than a new stadium could have hoped to produce.

Sometimes, confronted with our own problems, we’re too quick to push it off our desk with conventional wisdom and typical solutions just so we can say “There. Problem solved,” before moving on to the next fire. But when we take the time to reach deep into our own intelligence and resourcefulness, investing a little thought and creativity, we might find the answers to be more lucrative and fulfilling that we initially thought.

500,000 Wasted Hours

If you’ve ever purchased a ticket off Ticketmaster, submitted an article on Digg, or signed up with Facebook, you’ve probably been asked to decode a simple set of distorted letters to ensure that you’re actually a human being. That lit

tle security device is called a CAPTCHA. And by one estimate, over 200 million of them are solved every day.

CAPTCHAs (an acronym for the “Completely Automated Public Turing Test to Tell Computers and Humans Apart”) are a simple security device, and solving them is a fairly easy task. Unless you’re a computer. While the human eye can easily interpret a hazy word set against a backdrop of diagonal lines, even the most sophisticated programs can’t detect which lines belong to which characters. It’s a puzzle computers simply can’t crack. So it’s these simple CAPTCHAs that keep specious programs from spamming inboxes and chatrooms, and keep scalperbots from jumping ahead of you when you buy concert tickets online. 

But as beneficial as CAPTCHAs have been to web security, their developer, Luis von Ahn, can’t get over the fact that they’re wasting our time. “Each time you type a CAPTCHA, you essentially waste 10 seconds of your time,” he says. “And if you multiply that by 200 million, you get that humanity as a whole is wasting like 500,000 hours every day solving these annoying CAPTCHAs.”

Von Ahn, an assistant professor in the Computer Science Department at the Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, helped create the CAPTCHA in 2000. But a few years later, he began contemplating a more productive use for them. “The thing is, while you’re solving a CAPTCHA, while you’re reading these squiggly characters, you’re doing something amazing. You’re doing something computers cannot yet do. So the question is, can we use this effort for something good for humanity.”

It may seem a far stretch to ask how a little series of distorted words could benefit humanity. But with some thought and observation, it fit in perfectly with another online project: digitizing books.

The Internet Archive, a non-profit project in San Francisco, is attempting to scan all public-domain books, making them available for free online. It’s a vast undertaking requiring hundreds of thousands of pages to be scanned. The problem is, the computer can’t read the words as clearly as a human can. If the ink is smudged, or the type isn’t clear, the optical character recognition program (OCR) misreads or doesn’t recognize the characters, and the sentence becomes gibberish.

It occurred to von Ahn that if these unreadable words were used as CAPTCHAs on websites, people would be simultaneously solving CAPTCHAs and helping the Internet Archive project. Both projects hinge on the fact that computers sometimes can’t read as well as human beings can. “If you think about it, it’s a really natural solution,” says von Ahn.

With von Ahn’s new effort, reCAPTCHA, two words are shown with a spambot-thwarting line scrawled through them. One word is known to the computer, the other is a word that was unreadable to the Internet Archive’s scanners. Typing in the known word establishes your ability to read it, and typing in the other is your small contribution to the Internet Archive project.

Though it seems like an easy eureka moment, the idea of reCAPTCHA was a process that took several years. “What I usually like to do with my ideas, is I like to think about them for a long time before I actually implement them to really convince myself that they’re a good idea,” says von Ahn.

“When I first thought of it, I thought, ‘Yeah, that’s a good idea.’ But then, slowly, I was trying to find reasons why it wouldn’t work. And I guess after a while I couldn’t find any reasons why it wouldn’t. So I just did it.”

Von Ahn is a harsh critique of his own ideas. He has three disclosed patents, and a host of other programs. But he says with all of his ideas, he begins by trying to poke holes in them. “And for like 99% of my ideas, I eventually come up with a reason why they it won’t work.”

Von Ahn subjects the integrity of his ideas to others as well. “I also tell the idea to like 50 different people. And normally, if it’s a bad idea, pretty quickly, people start telling me why it won’t work.”

Having passed the test, reCAPTCHA currently corrects about 5 million words a day. About 25,000 websites use the program including Facebook, Ticketmaster, Twitter, Last.fm, and Bebo. Von Ahn points out that all this work is being done for free, and estimates it would take a paid staff of over 1000 to do the same amount of work. Von Ahn says the goal now is to have everybody who uses a CAPTCHA switch to reCAPTCHA. “We really would like to serve 200 million CAPTCHAs every day,” he says.

reCAPTCHA is just another example of the inescapable and recurring theme: problems are solved when connections are made. When careful observation allows two seemingly unrelated issues to combine for one symbiotic resolution.

What Von Ahn teaches us about our solutions is that when we set out to solve problems, we need be willing to share our ideas. Even if that means exposing them to the bludgeonings of criticism. We can’t shelter them, hoping they’ll somehow develop on their own. We can't be precious with them. For their integrity and validity to be truly tested, we need to open them to attack – even by ourselves.

To digitize a few words of your own via reCAPTCHA, or to add the program to your own site, click here.

Photo of Luis von Ahn taken from the Carnegie Mellon Today.

Utility Bills for the Homeless

Of all 50 states, Illinois has the 12th largest economic gap between average income and rental costs. Fewer than 40% of all households can afford a two-bedroom apartment, and 33% can’t afford one with a singe bedroom. In recent years, nearly 18,000 units of public housing in Chicago were slated for demolition, effectively displacing 42,000 people. Clearly, homelessness is a salient problem in the Windy City.

One of the many charities established to combat the city’s problem is Inspiration Corporation. Founded in 1989, Inspiration Corporation has grown to include over 850 volunteers, and now assists more than 1,500 chronically homeless individuals. With comprehensive programs for housing, employment, supportive services and meals, Inspiration Corporation is designed to not just feed and house individuals, but help them become self-sufficient.

It runs Inspiration Cafe and The Living Room Cafe, which reject the formats of choice-deprived soup kitchens in favor of restaurant-style seating, complete with a volunteer wait staff and menus. It even operates a culinary skills program called Cafe Too, where the program’s participants do a nine-week internship at the Cafe Too restaurant.

Inspiration Corporation operates in part because of government funding and earned income. But over a third of the organization’s costs are dependent upon private funding. Diane Pascal is in charge of raising that money. Originally a volunteer serving breakfast at one of Inspiration Corporation’s restaurants, Diane has been with the group for three years, working with a network of donors which includes corporations, foundations and individuals. But when the problem isn’t finding the donors, it’s managing their donations.

“I’ll tell you a problem we have,” she says. “And every non-profit has this problem. Funders often want to fund something new. They get excited about program growth. But if you have $1.3 million in private funding to find, not everybody can fund growth or new programs. You have to find people who are willing to fund ongoing programming and general operations. It’s ‘I want you to use this money to grow.’ But somebody has to pay the electric bill.”

It makes sense that donors would want their money to go to the newest shiny object. Donors want to see the value of their gift returned. They want to see some perpetuity to it. They’re giving up something of value (time or money), in exchange for something they feel will be of greater value (someone else’s happiness, self-sufficiency, or comfort) It’s easy to measure results in a new wing, or even a newly-designed brochure. But it seems so mundane when charitable donations translate to working light bulbs and a functioning thermostat.

Corporations are happy to donate to marquee programs like Inspiration Cafe and Cafe Too because these programs have a story. They have faces and families attached to them. But that still doesn’t pay the electric bills. So what do you do when a company offers you $40,000, but makes the request, “Use it to grow.”?

“Whenever we have a new program, we are going to tuck as much as we can into that budget,” says Pascal. “Because if people want to support something new, then we want to put as many things as we’re already doing into that program.”

It’s a little like pork barrel spending, but with honesty attached. “We tuck some of the existing costs into there, as long as we can defend it,” she says. “You can’t be tricky. We always put all the overheads, salaries and benefits, rent, and all of that into the budget. It’s a reasonable request. It’s a fair thing to ask for. But it’s something that we’re already doing. And that way, if they want to fund something new, we’re still covering some of our existing costs.”

Donors of significant amounts serve to police the appropriation of the funds, re quiring further transparency. “They really monitor our performance,” says Pascal. “They ask to see our outcomes. They ask questions about them. It pressures us to do better. It’s important. It keeps us honest. We’re a public trust, and they’re the ones who are monitoring our performance in that regard.”

Honesty isn’t often viewed as a form of problem solving, though it certainly can be problem prevention. But transparency also helps Inspiration Corporation face another problem all non-profits face: attracting donors. “It’s hard to get corporations interested in cause-related marketing for people who are homeless,” says Pascal. “So finding new sources of revenue is our biggest challenge.”

To attract interest in a sea of noble causes, the company has to be consistent with its messaging and its culture. Pascal says, “We’ve worked really hard to maintain our culture of empowerment and individuality. So I think when people read about us, or go to our website, they feel pretty good about it, and the message about helping people become self-sufficient as opposed to sort-of warehousing them.”

Like a company that advertises one experience and fails to deliver, being inauthentic can disappoint, if not totally alienate potential customers. Inspiration Corporation knows consistency and authenticity are vital to long-term communication.

“We’ve worked hard to make sure that our messaging really reflects who we are. You can’t make empty promises for what you do, because people come to visit you. You really have to be what you say you are.”

For information about volunteering or donations, click here.

Franklin's Police Reform

In 1735, Benjamin Franklin presented a paper to the Junto that addressed what he saw as egregious deficiencies in Philadelphia’s police force.

Philadelphia’s city watch was managed by constables who patrolled the streets and kept special guard over residents who had paid an annual fee. The fee was intended to help hire substitute watchmen. But the substitutes who were hired were, in Franklin’s view, of low character, who preferred to spend their nights drinking rather than patrolling: “The constable for a little drink often got such ragamuffins about him as a watch, that reputable housekeepers did not choose to mix with. Walking the rounds too was often neglected, and most of the night spent in tippling.”

Franklin also charged that the six-shilling fee was not only unnecessarily high (the constableship was bringing in a profit at the expense of the residents), but hardly a fair rate. The merchants and homes of affluence received the same protection as the poor and the widowed paying the same amount.

Presenting these problems to the Junto, Franklin proposed a more effectual watch be established, by regulating the hiring of “proper men” to serve and instituting a tax proportioned to one’s property.

Changes were made. But not overnight, as Franklin wrote: “The plan was not immediately carried into execution, yet by preparing the minds of people for the change, it paved the way for the law obtained a few years after, when the members of our clubs were grown into more influence.”

In truth, the “few years” Franklin mentioned were seventeen – hardly instant results. Franklin was only 29 when he brought the issue before the Junto, and was 45 and a member of the Philadelphia City Council when the city finally began regulating the watch. The point here is not that change was gradual, but that through diligence and patience, a problem was solved.

It is also worth noting that in presenting the problem to the Junto, Franklin also proposed his own solution. Though his initial proposal had little traction and took years to develop in clout and viability, Franklin clearly understood the difference between problem identification and problem solving.