Bruce Silverman is one of America’s best known and well respected marketing-communication and branding experts. A broad-view strategist, he served as executive creative director at four of America’s largest advertising agencies, as President/CEO of the principal U.S. unit of the world’s largest media planning and buying shop, as co-producer of three Broadway musicals, as the author of a book on how to write complaint letters, as instructor at two major universities, as a forensic expert witness, and as co-founder of three successful media-related companies.  He has lived and worked in New York, London, Houston, Dallas and Los Angeles, and his latest venture has offices in Beijing and Shanghai.

A long-time board member of the American Association of Advertising Agencies, his 38-year advertising agency career included C-level positions at Ogilvy & Mather, Bozell, BBDO/West, Asher/Gould and Wong Doody. He was the creative mind behind “Don’t Leave Home Without It” for American Express, “Bullish on America” (Merrill Lynch), “Something Special in the Air” (American Airlines), “Not made in ‘Nooo Yawk Ciddy” (Pace Picante), “The Shell Answer Man” and a dozen other award winning campaigns for such clients as IBM, Hershey’s, International Paper, Baskin-Robbins, Coldwell Banker, Sizzler, the California Department of Health Services, Suzuki, Pabst, Sanyo, Mattel, Greyhound, Armour, Zale’s and Post.

As President/CEO of the Initiative Partners division of Interpublic’s giant ($22 billion in annual billings) Initiative Worldwide, he supervised media planning and buying for Disney, Sega, Carl’s Jr., Taco Bell, Albertson’s, Acura, Kia, Chevrolet, Bally’s Health & Fitness, Six Flags, America Online, the United States Navy and Yahoo!

Bruce established his consulting practice in 2005.  In addition to advising a number of global, U.S. and Chinese companies and operating his portfolio of media-related companies, he is a member of the Board of Directors of Triton Media, Inc., Newsletters for Hire, Inc., 24/6, Inc. and Dynasty Visual Effects and Animation LLC.

A graduate of Adelphi University in New York, Bruce is a confirmed theater and arts junkie, a world traveler and an over-the-top Lakers fan. Bruce was a founding board member of the Los Angeles Children’s Museum and later served as Chairman of the Resource Development Committee of the Starbright Foundation. He is an active member of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, the Dean’s Advisory Board of UCLA Extension and is a director of the Los Angeles chapter of the Forensic Expert Witness Association.

What are you working on right now?

Bruce’s latest venture is Dynasty Visual Effects and Animation LLC, a company that offers a cost-effective way for advertisers and television stations and networks to produce “effects heavy” and fully animated commercials and promos at very low cost by utilizing production resources in China.   In addition, he continues to be very involved with his roster of consulting clients.

3 Trends that excite you?

1.    The ability to reach consumers in very up-close-and-personal ways via wireless and social media.
2.    The adoption of new technologies by terrestrial radio networks and stations, which offer advertisers multiple ways to reach and interact with loyal listeners.
3. The “inching closer and closer” of cable and satellite operators to offer one-to-one messaging.

How do you bring ideas to life?

I still do it the old-fashioned way. I write and write and write and write and edit and edit and edit and edit. and then try stuff out on my wife, friends and relatives.   I was taught a long time ago that there is nearly always more than one way to effectively execute against a strategy, so I try to come up with as many ideas as I can. and then focus on in on the one or two ideas that are most involving.

What is one mistake that you made, and what did you learn from it?

I left a great agency for a good one because they doubled my salary.  I should have stuck with the great one; jobs like that are very rare.  You’re much more likely to do your best work when you’re surrounded by huge talents.  I made a lot of money at “good agencies,” but I enjoyed myself much more, did my best work and felt better about myself at the great one.

What is one business idea that you’re willing to give away to our readers?

Find a way to become involved with China.

What is one tool, product, service, piece of software, or book that has helped you bring ideas to life?

I got into advertising many years ago after reading David Ogilvy’s book, Confessions of an Advertising Man.  It made me desperate to work and learn from him, and I was fortunate enough to spend my first 13 years in the business at O&M.  As marketing communications moves ever more towards a Direct Response model, virtually all of David’s teachings are proving to be timeless.  Confessions is pretty hard to find these days, but Ogilvy on Advertising, his second book, is still in print and contains great lessons for just about everyone working in advertising today, which is pretty amazing, considering that it was written well before the word “internet” existed!

Is the traditional advertising agency business model still valid?

No.  Most agencies carry too much baggage and want to do the kind of work they like to do rather than the work that needs to be done.  And most agencies are still siloed (even if they say they’re not); a deadly recipe in the age of integrated communications.

Do you have a philosophy of life?

I try to follow the advice contained in the old Scottish proverb, “Be happy in your work for you’re a long time dead.”

Connect

Bruce Silverman Consulting

How To Complain For Fun And Profit

Bruce Silverman on LinkedIn

Ian Lurie is Chief Marketing Curmudgeon and President at Portent Interactive, a firm he started in 1995. Portent is a full-service internet marketing company whose services include SEO, SEM and strategic consulting.

Ian’s built his firm, his blog and his career around the idea that the internet is a fantastic marketing medium, but that it hasn’t fundamentally changed the rules of successful marketing: A great product, a great message, well-crafted content and careful analysis will always win out.

Ian recently co-published the Web Marketing for Dummies All In One Desk Reference. In it, he wrote the sections on SEO, blogging, social media and web analytics. He’s the author of Conversation Marketing, the internet marketing blog and the book by the same name.

What are you working on right now?

I’m working on an internet marketing resource guide called the Fat Free Guide. It’s a massive project that I’ll be releasing a little bit at a time – I’ll be announcing it on Conversation Marketing. I’m always studying and learning more about SEO, and working on perfecting the tools that help my team and I do our jobs.

Out of the office, I’m trying to get back into decent cycling shape after 3 years off the bike. I’m also trying to get my kids to take their dishes to the dishwasher after meals. I’m more optimistic about the former.

3 Trends that excite you?

First, the steady merging of mobile devices and the internet. It drives me nuts to hear folks talk about ‘mobile marketing’. Soon, it won’t be possible for agencies to assert that mobile is a different kind of marketing. Yes, there are some special requirements, just like doing an ad in a magazine has special requirements. But the message and essential story should be the same on a handheld device or a desktop or a TV.

Of course, the continued growth of the internet is pretty exciting, too. This isn’t really news. But we’ve just barely scraped the surface. It’s a hell of a lot of fun being involved in all of this from the start.

Finally, the rising importance of trending content and real time search is a huge opportunity for agile businesses and people. Portent’s spent a lot of time studying how to best ‘surf’ a topic that’s trending in social media, search, news or offline. This may be the biggest opportunity out there right now.

How do you bring ideas to life?

I’m all about simplifying as much as possible. If I have a big idea, I try to divide it into things I can do in a week or two. I build the first part, launch it, and then see how it goes. Then I go to the next part. Sometimes it’s an ugly process. It’s hard to not keep tweaking something until it’s perfect. But the idea that never gets out there has no chance for success, and I’ve seen countless teams and people plan and perfect themselves to death.

What is one mistake that you’ve made that our readers can learn from?

You don’t need to take on every project. I’ve sometimes taken on clients and projects that were a poor fit from the start, and ended up with an unhappy team and client.

What is one idea that you’re willing to give away to our readers?

Someone really needs to build search engine that can give Google an honest run for its money. That should be an easy one. Cough. Or, take a crack at this one: A CMS that is 100% HTML5 compliant. It’s gotta happen soon.

How can I tell if the internet marketer/SEO I’m talking to is legit?

So many professionals seem to abdicate responsibility when they hire an internet marketer. Something about the fact that this stuff runs on top of technology makes everyone freeze up.

The same way you choose anyone in a highly specialized profession. Meet them. Talk to them. Get a feel for who they are, their expertise, and their ability to talk to you about their work. Definitely do NOT work with anyone who suggests they have a magic formula or secret sauce.

Definitely DO work with folks who are good communicators.

Connect

Ian Lurie on Twitter

Ian Lurie on LinkedIn

Portent Interactive

Conversation Marketing

A leading executive in the Canadian telecommunication industry and a recognized business consultant and educator, Roy Osing’s career spans over three decades of singular achievement.

During his distinguished tenure with TELUS, Osing served as chief marketing officer, senior vice president for Strategic Alliance Management, and executive vice president and president of TELUS Advanced Communications. Osing developed multiple strategic partnerships and alliances with major corporations over the years, and was responsible for exponentially growth in emerging data and internet businesses, successfully positioning TELUS as a global leader in the industry.

Roy Osing was senior vice president marketing of the former BC TELECOM. Under his leadership, the company received the 1998 American Marketing Association’s “Marketer of the Year Award” in British Columbia.

A graduate of the University of British Columbia with degrees in mathematics and computer science, Osing is founding chair and president of the British Columbia Quality Council. He is a former member of the board of directors of the Vancouver Board of Trade, the British Columbia Technology Industry Association, the British Columbia Cancer Foundation, and the British Columbia & Yukon Heart and Stroke Foundation.

Roy Osing is founder, president and chief executive officer of Brilliance for Business, an organization dedicated to providing practical and proven ways to improve both business and personal performance.

He has incorporated his career’s experience and learning into the groundbreaking new book BE DiFFERENT or be dead: Your Business Survival Guide.

What are you working on right now?

Consulting and promoting my new groundbreaking book “BE DiFFERENT or be dead: Your Business Survival Guide”, a practical and proven Guide to help organizations achieve true sustainable competitive differentiation to thrive and survive these challenging times.

3 Trends that excite you?

Trend #1 - Competition is going nuts out there! There are more competitors now than ever before and they are forming faster than ever before, making it critical that businesses find a way to stand out in the crowd to attract customers. If a business can’t create unique value for the customers they choose to serve they will not survive. BE DiFFERENT or be dead shows organizations how to grow their business and dominate competitors by leveraging the critical functions of Strategy, Marketing, Sales and Customer Service.

Trend #2 – Successful businesses are moving away from the traditional marketing approach of flogging products to mass markets; they are moving to what I have coined a “customerized” marketing discipline that created value-based Holistic Offers for small groups of customers in order to enhance their relevance to their target audience. BE DiFFERENT or be dead shows how to build an Offer Creation Marketing Capability.

Trend # 3 - The key driver of Customer loyalty to any business is the Service Experience (SE). The SE is the feeling a customer gets when they transact with an organization. If a person is “dazzled” in their service experience they will not only tell others, they stay and be a raving fan and advocate. BE DiFFERENT or be dead explores how organizations can build a Dazzling Service Experience Culture.

How do you bring ideas to life?

My way of “breathing life” into an idea is to first, simplify it so that people can understand it. “Never try to impress yourself with your own words!” is my mantra and it always works for any audience I have been in front of.

Second, tell stories that transforms the idea into observable behaviors so people can “see” the idea in action.

Third, an idea “walks the land of the living” from people who believe in it and are passionate about it. If you don’t love your idea, why should anyone else?

What is one mistake that you’ve made that our readers can learn from?:

This is a tough one to learn, but try desperately not to overreact when things are not going your way. Try this method: pause, breathe, think,then respond thoughtfully. This allows you to get control over your emotions before opening your mouth and blurting something out that you may regret later.

What is one idea that you’re willing to give away to our readers?

To quote the theme of my book “If you’re not DiFFERENT, You’re Dead (or soon will be).” This applies equally in life as it does in business. You absolutely must covet uniqueness in order to be heard, seen, and be paid attention to in this amazing world of zealots all seeking success and fame in whatever they do.

What motivated you to write your new book?

I was motivated to write my book because my ‘customers’ asked me to.

I had been doing Seminars and Workshops on my BE DiFFERENT Practices for a year or so, and finally my audience asked me if I had considered putting my stuff into a formal repository. Sounded like a good idea so I wrote the book literally from my presentation Power Point slides.

In addition, I have always been driven to provide assistance to organizations looking for ways to improve their performance and a formal book in a ’How to’ Guide format seemed to fit the bill.

What advice would you give someone aspiring to be an executive in an organization?

In point form here are the things that I did that worked:

• Develop your personal brand that is different from others and that addresses a critical business need.
• Work on your communications skills. You need to be an excellent communicator.
• Every time you go through a ‘change’ in your organization (new boss, new strategy, organizational change, new role for example) ask yourself “The Magic Question: ” “What will I do differently now that things have changed?”
• Serve people don’t ‘Command and Control’ them.
• Be passionate about what you do. Your energy will infect others.

Connect:

book website www.bedifferentorbedead.com
book blog: www.bedifferentorbedead.com/blog
twitter @royosing
e-mail roy.osing@telus.net