(October 28, 2008) Creative Growth Group, Inc. and Atlanta Business School Alliance, the organizers of Atlanta’s Client Advisor Awards, announced today the 2008 Client Advisor Awards finalists.   TopRight is honored to be a finalist in the Small Professional Services Firm Category.  Additionally, TopRight would like to announce two client finalists:

Finalist in the Small Client Category: WordRake, LLC

Finalist in the Large Client Category: InterContinental Hotels Group

Held for the first time in 2006, the Client Advisor Awards celebrate the importance of the professional services sector to the Atlantaeconomy and set the standard for professionalism by honoring advisors and clients who consistently and cooperatively foster and grow successful client advisor relationships.  The premise of the Awards program is that clients and their advisors both get more out of their engagements when they demonstrate certain best practices.  These practices are publicly recognized and rewarded through the Client Advisor Awards program. 

Client Advisor Award winners will be announced at an exclusive ceremony on December 2, 2008.  The Awards ceremony will feature Dr. Paul Voss, President of Ethikos, LLC, a consultancy focused on helping professional service firms and organizations establish metrics for measuring the cultural and ethical DNA of their leadership teams and divisions.  Dr. Voss will speak about ethics in the relationships between professional services firms and their clients.  Details about location and attendance registration for the December 2, 2008 Client Advisor Awards luncheon ceremony are available at www.clientadvisorawards.com.

Since The Olympic Games are the most anticipated sporting event in the world, we decided to follow up on our post-Games report by studying viewers’ behaviors and the impact advertising and sponsorships had on them.   One may question the reason for studying The Olympics months after its conclusion.  Actually it is an ideal time—especially since it takes perhaps only three months to erase the star athletes from our collective conscience, calling into question the value of Olympic sponsorship.

Just as every US presidential election is called the most important election ever, these Olympics were called the most important Olympics ever.  They were important for advertisers for the following reasons:  1) a bigger audience than ever, 2) the integration of online video, 3) the diminished efficacy of television spots due to digital video recorders (or DVRs), and 4) China—human rights violator and nascent economic superpower.We polled viewers on several topics:

• Why do companies advertise during and/or sponsor the Olympics?
• How did you watch The Olympics? (online, broadcast TV, TiVo, etc.)
• How have attitudes and opinions about advertisers changed?

Here of some of our topline results:

• 93% of respondents watched The Olympics (nationwide, it was more little more than 70% according to CNBC)
• 60% of respondents watched the games as they were broadcast; of those using a DVR about half skipped most of the commercials
• 71% did not watch any of the Olympics online, and of those who did, “just to try it out” was cited as the key reason

The most recalled brands during The Olympics:

1. Coca-Cola
2. McDonalds
3. Visa
4. Nike
5. Speedo
6. Lenovo

For more results, click here.

It has been claimed  that consumers accept advertising and “don’t attach political ramifications to it.”  Our research actually found something interesting.  To the question, “Have your opinions about any company that advertised during or sponsored The Games or athletes changed”, a shocking 100% said “No”.  In other words, the advertising did not change opinion.     To the survey question that followed, “Some companies chose not to advertise/sponsor during The Olympics due to either Chinese human rights violations or the issue of Tibet. Do you respect these companies:  More, Less, The same, or N/A (I have no opinion)”, the results were equally shocking because of the change.  While four out of ten people said “the same”, about 5% said less, and 31.5% said more!

Based on the findings of these two questions, it appears (taking a stand and) not advertising during something people feel strongly about (one way or another) may actually be more effective than advertising.  There are plenty of other examples other than our report on the Olympics that support this.  Food for thought.

 My earlier ruminations on Southeastern college football reminded me of a story.  Back in the day, when Bear Bryant would do his weekly TV show, he would always have a Coke (Coca-Cola for all you non-Southerners) and Golden Flake potato chips.  For decades, Coke products were the only drinks available in the stadium.  When I was there as an undergrad in the late 1990’s the Athletic Director – whose name to this day is not uttered by myself or most other die-hard Alabama fans for a number of reasons, at least not without a string of modifiers not fit to print here  - signed a contract with Pepsi to take over stadium drink concessions based on competitive bids.  I don’t think he quite anticipated the backlash to which he would be subjected for breaking with what had become an integral part of the immensely powerful Crimson Tide Tradition.  It was utter mayhem – alumni, boosters, and current students all but revolted.  It didn’t take long before he was run out of town – oh sure, the program was going into the biggest NCAA suspensions ever handed down short of the death penalty, but we all knew why he was really being replaced.  When the new AD, Mal Moore – who played and coached under The Bear for years – was hired, one of his first moves was to go ahead and sign a new deal with Coca-Cola to take back over stadium drink concessions as soon as the Pepsi contract ran out some 5 years down the road.  Just goes to show – you don’t mess with a legend, or his drink of choice. 

It’s a funny thing – I live in Atlanta, home of such enormous brands as Coca-Cola, Chick-fil-A, Delta, Georgia-Pacific, Home Depot, and Rubbermaid, but from August through early January (and arguably longer), those brands take a back seat to another set of brands – college football’s Southeastern powerhouses.  To be fair, it isn’t just the Southeast – that is just my own little window.  These brands inspire such intense emotional reactions, and garner so much loyalty and advocacy from fans that it’s no wonder more traditional brands fight like mad for the endorsement rights.  It occurred to me over the last few weekends of watching college football that there are a lot of things traditional brands could learn from these football programs. Here are four good examples.
 
Build a sustainable, long-term connection with your customers.  Florida has sold out every home game since sometime in 1989 – more than 100 straight, ditto for Alabama who had 92,138 watch a Spring game with thousands more outside the stadium.  I could rattle off similar stats for Miami, Georgia, Auburn, Tennessee, FSU, LSU – you get the point.  But here’s the real kicker – the connection these football brands have with their fans is so strong that more often than not, the allegiance is handed down from one generation to the next.  How many other brands can claim that kind of advocacy?
 
Create symbols or iconic images that help consumers personify or closely link their personal identities to the brand.  The Gator chomp, Georgia’s blackouts between the hedges, Tennessee’s parade up the river to Neyland Stadium, Auburn with the eagle circling and its rabid fan base maxing out the in-stadium noise meters, Ole Miss and The Grove, Alabama and its Rammer Jammer cheer.  These aren’t just things the fans do or places they go – these are the things they live for, the things they pour their hearts and souls into every fall weekend.  
 
Make the consumption occasion about being part of a community and social networking.  The tailgating and social atmosphere surrounding the game is just as big a draw for most fans as is the game itself.  At most big Southeastern programs, the RVs start arriving Tuesday night (you know, assuming they actually left after the previous weekend).  But these social networks extend way beyond the 5 to 10 miles surrounding the stadium.  No matter where you run into fans of your team, the sense of camaraderie remains every bit as strong.  Earlier this year, my wife and I were greeted with several “Roll Tides” while in New Zealand, which, I am pretty sure is just about as far from Bryant-Denny Stadium as you can get.
 
Leverage the history of your brand.  College football teams do this amazingly well in a variety of ways, but two areas stand out above the others.  The first is leveraging the legendary figures that have made these brands what they are today – figures that will live on in Southern memory for time eternal like Bear Bryant and his drinking buddy/arch rival Shug Jordan, Bobby Bowden, Herschel Walker, the Manning Brothers, Joe “Willie” Namath, the Ol’ Ball Coach, Bo Jackson, and so many more.   Georgia Tech and Clemson used to have this coach named Heisman – I hear there is an award named after him.  Then there is the current crop of SEC coaches who may go down as the greatest collection of coaches ever.   And don’t forget the radio voices of the programs, personified by the recently retired Larry Munson who called Georgia games for longer than most Georgia fans have been alive (“We stepped on their face with a hob nailed boot, and broke their nose” – just classic!).
 
Second is the focus on historical rivalries as a rallying point for fans.  Georgia vs. Auburn, the Florida vs. Florida State vs. Miami trilogy, Alabama vs. Tennessee with its victory cigars on the third Saturday of October, Georgia vs. Florida in the (formerly) World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party, the Egg Bowl, the Bowden Bowl, the Iron Bowl, the shear animosity between Alabama and LSU.  No matter how bad the season has been or how heavily favored the opponent may be, you can be guaranteed that these games will sell out and that the fans will cheer their team on like its the national championship.  Rivalry might not work for most brands, but I bet there is some other aspect of their histories that can be leveraged