Buttering Cal McAllister’s Bread

In November, I attended the inaugural Seattle Interactive Conference; a two-day event featuring presentations, panels and networking opportunities for those interested in or focused on technology, creative, or interactive advertising. I was pleased to hear from industry leaders – brands such as AllRecipes and Engadget – and successful people in tech and beyond, like Cal McAllister of creative agency Wexley School for Girls and Sir Mix-A-Lot.

One of the most profound things I took away from the conference (well, several things, actually) was from the slight genius of Cal McAllister, during his presentation titled “Thinking.” (Yes, I am one of many people who will pay good money to listen to Cal think.) The first thought of Cal’s that stuck with me was how Wexley School for Girls thinks of itself, and the brands they work for, as a “fan factory.”

Wexley is a fan factory. We take your money and turn it into thousands, tens of thousands, millions of thousands of crazy people. We can create them. We can reinvigorate them. We will deliver them. Fans that stay for a lifetime of loyalty, with the spending and championing that comes with it.

Our biggest value as an advertising agency is not just getting fans in the door, but earning and sustaining their fanship over the long haul by entertaining them time and time again. As they hold you in their hearts and minds and on the tips of their tongues, we engage them in ways you can imagine and others you cannot. It’s pretty simple, really.

I love that Wexley knows exactly what they do, who they are, and why. For an agency that prides itself on branding organizations, they take the cake in honing in on their own brand (not always an easy feat; this often gets muddied in the details of agency work).  I guess you could say that I have a crush on Wexley School for Girls. They make me giddy, and smiley, and sometimes sweaty with excitement. (* I am NOT looking for employment with Wexley.)

Secondly, Cal mentioned the following tidbits of valuable information for people and orgs creating public content:

1. Ideas Need To Be Simple: Humans receive more than 500 unsolicited messages everyday – unsolicited means messages and visuals such as billboards, commercials, pop-ups, flashy shiny ads and dancing sign wavers: these are not the hundreds of thousands of messages that we actually subscribe to and process (think Facebook, Twitter, emails, and news). Keep messaging simple!
2. Messages Need To Be Repeatable: Cal offered the example of Paul Revere’s famous adage “One if by land, two if by sea” as how colonial’s learned that the Brit’s were coming. The message was targeted to a specific audience, and was something that was easy to repeat and travel – it was (and is) memorable.
3. Create Proud Fans: Audiences need to be proud to share the message – TOMS Shoes is a great example of a brand message that fans are proud to share: One for One. With Every Pair You Purchase, TOMS Will Give a Pair to a Child in Need.

The last thing Cal said, that really stuck with me, was “be the best part of someone’s day.” A philosophy that speaks volumes, both as a professional in an agency that communicates to publics and on behalf of clients, and a regular, everyday human being. Sometimes a simple “hello” and yielding at a crosswalk can be the action that makes the world that much brighter.

- Leigh Ann Dufurrena