Idea Theft & Copyrighting Copywriting

Patents protect products, copyright protects written and artistic work, but what about ideas?

My first association with the phrase “copycat” goes back to Sunday school, remarkably. I must have been seven or eight years old and we were drawing. I recall being completely engrossed in my picture (of a house. I can also remember my ‘style’ of drawing houses at that age) and looking up to see the person opposite me drawing the same picture.
“Denise!” I exclaimed in protest (Denise was the teacher).
“So-and-so (can’t recall the person’s name) copied my picture!”
“Don’t worry,” she said, “That means you drew a good picture and you should be flattered.”
And I was.
That was when I was seven (or eight), and maybe that’s what Jesus would have done. I am now 27 and trying to make a living from my ideas and really not enamoured when it happens. Note the plural current tense. It has now happened twice and is on the verge of a third occurrence, methinks.

When the thought thief is an adult, and using the ideas to advance him or herself financially or professionally or worse- both- it isn’t really flattering at all. It’s pretty infuriating.

Which is not to say I haven’t harvested my share of information from professionals in my time. Because I have- plenty of times. The difference is that I have never tried to pass it off as my own. And always done it with the intent of saving the company I worked for money, not channelling it through some nepotistic line and getting a kick-back on the side.
Lesson learnt: it’s not what you know, it’s who you know.

Why PR is Underrated

Lapses in communication

PR requires a bit of tenacity to get right. I am still trying to come to terms with it. The key is understanding public relations is actually communication and not hoping for anything more. The goal of the PR is actually to create another level of communication between him / herself and the client and him / herself and the designer so that they can understand each other because they do not speak the same language.

Which sounds pretty simple. But it isn’t. Because the nature of the business person who values PR, marketing and advertising means that they are generally incredibly busy. They are also generally not the best communicators. They are, after all, business people, and not PRs.

The nature of the designer or creative is generally an acquired taste. I mean that with respect- it is a statement of fact, not a judgement. Designers usually cannot follow more than one train of thought or instruction, and they usually get all caught up in whatever they are working with at the time. They read but generally do not respond to requests, and may very well be actioning them, they just don’t communicate that to anyone until they have finished. While most professionals use their professional know-how to educate and inform clients when their expectations are unreasonable, designers will refrain from communicating this and scoff at the ignorance of the client.

Here are my tips at surviving a career in public relations:

1. Use a numbered list when communicating more than idea at a time
PRs, it appears, have a bit more of a capacity to work through an email which contains more than one instruction / piece of information. Clients and designers do not. While the art of crafting a paragraph is a skill appreciated by PRs, journalists and media professionals, it throws an invisibility cloak over itself when seen by the eyes of a designer or small business owner. Use short sentences. Do not use bullet points. Use a numbered list. Where possible make the list a different colour. Despite these tips you will find it only on very rare occasions that anyone ever makes it to the end of the list. When that happens, record date and time. For the rest of the time, refer to point three. The logic? While neither may be able to work from top to bottom, they generally both understand numbers.

2. Chasing the deadline is your problem
Regardless of whether the designer misses the deadline or the client never supplies the vital parts of the project. Don’t just tell them both when the deadline, lay out your expectations and hope for the best. On some very important occasions it may serve you to go to the place of work of the designer. And remain there until the project is finished. Really.

3. Follow up on number one because of number two
Yes, there are only three things. Three nearly-impossible things to achieve and survive times x clients times x designers times x projects. Ha ha.

Note- I use the words generally and usually a lot in this blog post. The use of these words is intended diplomatically, not to demonstrate generalisation, because they generally apply to all designers and business owners I have worked with to date, and because I would like to continue to work with them going forward.

Marketing Mistakes Clients Make

1. A penny saved is a penny earned:
a. The money boss makes the marketing decisions
b. Believing that not spending on advertising or PR is saving money
c. It seems so expensive so I am going to get the cheapest one OR
d. It seems so expensive so I am going to get the smallest quantity even though the cost per unit is almost double

So many entrepreneurs believe that the mere ingenuity of their idea is what will sell it. Most of them are right, but most of them also do not give any thought to how they are going to get that idea across to their target market. Just because an idea exists does not mean people know about it. Clients spend fortunes on setting up the most advanced operations with the most high-tech equipment and gadgetry and don’t even toss a quarter of an idea at how they are going to give this idea wings, how they are going to carry it across to the people they want to sell it to.
"The person who saves money by not advertising is like the man who stops the clock to save time."- Attributed to A Very Wise Man

2. I am the boss. Therefore I do everything the best
Including writing press releases and marketing material, despite the fact that there is a fully-fledged marketing department at my disposal to do it for me. Yes, you may have put your heart and soul into that new campaign or launch and, while you may have been the fire behind the company for the last twenty years, a press release is not your personal platform for sharing your expertise or thanking everyone you have ever had the pleasure of working with. Give a written or verbal brief and step back.

3. I placed an advert. Advertising doesn’t work
Yes, that is why advertising revenue has reached infinite trillions in terms of revenue generation the world over. Refer to point one. Did you let the money boss decide where to put the ad, how big it should be and where it should go? Did he also decide on a singular placement? Exactly. Advertising is a strange game, sure, but definitely one that has to be played properly. Consult a professional to get the most mileage out of your money when it comes to advertising.

4. The internet is the place to be. If I have a website I will make sales
Yes, you and the 300 billion plus other website owners out there. You have to make a bit more of an effort than that to be singled out. Find out about search engine optimisation, social media marketing and copy writing for the internet.

5. Editorial is not advertising
While great PR can get you good editorial in print, online and broadcast media it cannot get you free advertising. That fabulous package, special or promotion you are running doesn’t count as press release material and can’t be sent out as media release-worthy.

Low Cost Marketing Ideas

There’s free and there’s low cost. When you spend a bit of money your capacity to make an impact goes up; it’s something of an investment in your target audience. Here are some easy and cost-effective ways to get your brand out there.

Corporate gifts- unique and free Branding promotional goods that are unique and eye-catching is a great way to ensure you stay front of mind. The trick is to make them unique and useful.

Steal ideas from competition products and services Within reason, of course. What you are looking for is how much they appear to be investing, and where they are investing so you can compete. When it comes to marketing and creativity though, uniqueness is key.

Seek out new and different advertising platforms Look for innovative ways to get your brand out there, and look to put your business in a space that no one else or no one in your industry has ventured into.

Offer something for free- incentivise Give customers a reason to shop with you- what’s in it for them? A discount, something for free, a value-add- these are all ways your business can distinguish itself from competition products when a customer is weighing you up.

Use email to its greatest potential Use your company database actively- to communicate your specials and promotions. People you have an existing relationship with are much easier to convert into customers than people with whom you have no history. This is information you have on record, and it is free. Exercise it.

Don’t underestimate the power of client relationships Great customer service goes a very long way. Never underestimate the power of a solid relationship and exceptional communication skills.

The Global Village: Back to The Future?

Despite having left my academic days far behind me (such leisurely undertakings as reading, studying and following one singular train of thought at a time make a rapid exit at the entry of children), I had a flashback to McLuhan’s theory of the ‘global village’ and a relative understanding of it, at least in a South African context.

So, many years ago we were running rampant through undeveloped fields or velds, depending on where we lived. We had acquired the basic skills necessary to get by and had rudimentary means of transport, and figured out what we generally could and couldn’t eat. We were tribal beings living in rural areas and had very simple ways of life. “Work” was probably in the field or veld just down the way from the hut, or at the cattle shed behind the hut. We didn’t have to go far to get there, didn’t have the stress of daily commuter-type travel.

As time went by we went through a few hundred years of urbanisation where we all flocked to the cities, to where ‘it was all happening’, to where the money was to be made. Some people moved their families with them, others left their families in the rural areas and visited them when they could. Today not many of us want to stay in the city.

Now that we have cast our concrete hand on the areas known as towns and cities, and literally bled them dry, the novelty has worn off. How we as a South African community have responded is to bring the city to us. We now perform those functions, formerly reserved for the metropolitan web of cities and towns, inside of our comfort zones. Is this a return to what we, after centuries of modern evolution, originally fled from? Did we swop the urbanity of primal life for the sophistication of the cosmopolitan? Yes and no. it is here that we begin to see a split. Has the convenience of home-run business operations come at the cost of our comfort zones? We have managed somehow to ‘let in’ the modern evils that your average cluster compound has been created to inhibit.

And yes, while McLuhan’s global village is also concerned with the omnipresence of communication technologies and the faster connections between people from all corners, it is also a reference to the pervasion of the capitalist spirit in every sphere of life. While the Blackberry and the laptop are arguably physical extensions of modern man, extensions of the sensory potential of the human being, they are also intrusions. People who work from the home environment will tell you about how much more convenient everything is, how much more flexible everything is. That is only because things that may not have been entirely acceptable at the office, are now completely within limits at home. The shape-shifting of boundaries and the emotional displacement of the human spirit are not very stable or stabilising factors when played with together.

Did pre-urbanised man worry about his crop of mielies when he was sitting in front of his fire with the family around him? Probably. Did this cause him stress-induced insomnia, road rage or weight gain? Probably not; our social development into the value affixed to family time was completely different then. He was probably a patriarchal arsehole of an Alpha Male and didn’t share his fire or thoughts with anyone.

Ok, so maybe we can’t compare properly, but the point is that we have come around full circle and Mcluhan’s theory of the global village is developing at a rapid pace in South African society here lifestyles have been become ‘clustered’ and estates have morphed into self-containing ecosystems which function without completely autonomously- little worlds existing within their own frames of reference. One globe of villages.

Creating a Successful Marketing Strategy

“Satisfying needs and wants through an exchange process”- Philip Kotler on the phenomenon of marketing.

Here are some essential pointers to keep in mind when creating a successful marketing strategy for any business, regardless of its size, shape or composition.

Define the product / service Make explicitly clear what it is that you are offering, and on what terms that product or service is offered.

Know your target market Learn as much as you can about who you are targeting with your product or service and what their likes and dislikes are.

Know your competition Learn from your competition. Have a look at what they are doing and where they are most active and get some pointers. Most importantly, work out what they are doing and do it better!

Identify a niche The most successful products fulfil a need that nothing else does. Find your niche group and target it effectively.

Generate product awareness Just because your product or service has been born into the marketplace doesn’t give it a right to be known about. Find as many avenues as you can to market your business and do it with aplomb.

Engender credibility Never underestimate the power of word of mouth and make sure that your customers have nothing but the best to say about you, starting from day one. Reputations stick- make sure yours is pretty.

Keep consistent Ensure that everything about your business is consistent, from the messaging to the product you are offering, through to the service you are offering people.

Know when to step back Especially if the business is yours and let marketing professionals do what they do best! You may have conceived, carried and born this business all on your own but there comes a time when you have to let go and listen to good professional advice!

And...

"An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all."
— Oscar Wilde

Take Comfort In The Knowledge That...

"The public have an insatiable curiosity to know everything, except what is worth knowing."- Oscar Wilde