Kelly Bush is the Founder & CEO of ID PR. She is a karate black belt, reputed to be unafraid to threaten journalists when she needs to, and one of the film industry’s most effective publicists for putting out fires.
Her article, 3 millennial marketing lessons from the selfie, first appeared in Ragan's PR Daily a few weeks ago.
As a member of Generation X, I find selfies to be, well, almost comical. It’s photography taken by oneself, featuring oneself, doing nothing other than being oneself.
Some have started calling millennials “the selfie generation.” But what does the selfie really tell us marketers about the millennial generation?
A lot, I think. With every picture, millennials express themselves and reveal how they prefer to receive information. For marketers, knowing how millennials communicate is key to reaching them and to helping them express themselves through our brands.
Here’s how the selfie gives us insight into the millennial psyche:
Selfish selfies
Sometimes it seems like every single situation, no matter how mundane, is “selfie-worthy” to some millennials. New shirt? Selfie! Arrived at the office on time? Selfie! Just feeling good today? Selfie!
Why the “selfish” selfies? This generation is beyond digital native. They are on the cusp of being mobile natives. They barely remember a world that
wasn’t connected via mobile devices.
Every aspect of their lives is based on connectivity. So why wouldn’t the ability to share every moment of their lives on demand be the norm? It’s how they learn about new restaurants and products, how they complain to their friends about their latest failed relationship, and even how they meet their future (possibly failed) relationship partner.
LESSON LEARNED: Connectedness is an integrated aspect of millennials’ lives. Mobile can’t be an afterthought. It has to be the first thought.
Self-expression selfies
Millennials aren’t just sharing their everyday stories on social media. They’re using all kinds of tools to enhance their stories.
The tool might be a quirky photo filter. Perhaps it's a unique selfie pose they’re introducing. They might even resort to hashtagging their selfies.
Millennials are driven to be unique when they express themselves. Their social media photos are as much an expression of themselves as the clothing they wear, the music they listen to, and the people with which they hang out.
LESSON LEARNED: If you want to resonate with millennials, give them ample opportunity to express themselves. Make sure customer service listens to their unique expressions, and give them opportunities to customize your products.
Situational selfies
Did you see this guy? He took a selfie from the top of Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro. It’s one of many “risk-taking” selfies that kids are doing these days.
Millennials’ lives are often rooted in visual context. They’ve grown up in a world with easy access to photography (Instagram) and video (YouTube). They even graduate high school with the ability to create digital slideshows, build websites, and edit videos. They know what impact visual can have. And they rely on it in the stories they share.
LESSON LEARNED: "Let’s get visual / Visual / I wanna get visual…" (#ThrowbackThursday). You don’t have to rely on copy to tell your story. Visual context can’t be overstated with Millennials. They get it. Powerful image or video will go much farther than a block of copy.
Millennials’ wants and needs aren’t so different from anyone else’s. They’re just children of a different era of technology and
connectedness. So they’re communicating with each other, and the brands they love, differently. And perhaps "Selfie-shly."
Mr. Smith is in for a surprise when Jimmy invites him into the time machine.
I was watching Back to the Future with my son one day. He asked
if I would build him a time machine. I found an old refrigerator box, and made one. As we played with it, the basic idea hit me -- not the full story just yet -- but the idea of a boy having a cardboard time machine, as opposed to a lemonade stand.
Pre-production wasn't too terrible. I knew exactly what I wanted. I knew that I was going to shoot it at my parent's house, and I already had a basic shot list. I had also already done some test shoots with my son (who's actually the star of the commercial). So I painted and designed the box in our front yard. Lots of people drove by giving me the strangest looks. Someone even asked if they could buy the cardboard from me for their cardboard business.
Then I had to cast for the Older Man and Mr. Smith. Including myself, talent, and crew there was a total of 7 of us. Location was my parent's house. The boy was my son; the dog was my dog 'Hogan.' Mr. Smith was a mutual friend that I had always wanted to work with, and the old man was local Arizona talent that I was told was a great actor and a great guy! The rumors were true!
When it was all said and done, the budget was just under $300. ~Ryan Thomas Andersen
Bloop Animation is an animation learning channel offering video tutorials for aspiring animators and visual artists.
What if I told you that all Pixar movies are connected? That all the characters in those movies actually live in the same universe, only in different times? How is that possible, watch this video and you'll find out.
Based on "The Pixar Theory" by Jon Negroni. Narrated by Evyatar Gour.
Tony Zhou says,
Robin Williams was a genius, but he was also a dedicated craftsman who
explored how an actor could express character through movement. Join me
in honoring this tiny facet of his work.
It was Walter Wanger who got Preston Sturges into movies in the first place, hiring him off his Broadway success to "dialogue" some movies at Astoria in 1929. Sturges thought little of the work; there's no Pulitzer Prize for film, he'd say. He traveled to Universal in 1932, finding the usual vale of tears.
Sturges shouldn't be lumped with the decade's angry, rebellious screenwriters; he was too droll and self-mocking for that (his autobiography is titled Between Flops
), but still the studio system offended him—it was
so stupid, wasteful. "Four writers were considered the rock-bottom minimum required. Six writers, with the sixth member a woman to puff up the lighter parts, were considered ideal."
It was also indifferent to his ambitions. Taking the system on, he began, in 1933, by doing something unorthodox—he wrote an original screenplay. Common now, screenplays done on spec, on the writer's own time, were seen, in the system's halcyon days, as a sign of weakness, something done as a calling card by a writer too young to snare a contract or the product of a failing writer desperate to hold on. Eleanor (Sturges, his wife at the time) had told Sturges the story of her father fighting his way to the top of the cereal trust, and he thought he might turn it into a movie.
Because she'd told him the story out of order and over time, he decided to structure his screenplay the same way, starting at the end with a suicide and a funeral and flashing back over the life of his hero, seeing him through the eyes of different characters, his affairs, his mistakes, showing how an American success story could add up to a sour nothing in the end (a structure that clearly influenced Citizen Kane and one that neither Welles nor Mankiewicz ever acknowledged). He'd written a third of The Power and the Glory when he ran into Jesse Lasky's story editor at a party and mentioned what he was working on. Impressed, the editor set up a meeting with his boss. Lasky heard the story and was impressed as well, offering to buy it as a treatment, a summarized ten pages or so. Sturges balked—he was too far along on the real thing—but he offered instead to sell Lasky a complete screenplay, ready to shoot, when it was finished. Lasky was amused— Sturges was clearly new at this business. A month later he received
a complete screenplay of proper length, complete in every word of dialogue, the action of every scene blueprinted for the director, and including special instructions for the cameraman and all departments... I was astounded. It was the most perfect script I'd ever seen... I wouldn't let anyone touch a word of it.
Lasky wanted to—he held a three-hour meeting with his story department looking for something in the script they didn't like, but they could find nothing to change. This was unheard of, one writer accomplishing everything by himself. Lasky sent for Sturges, and they dickered. Here Sturges held an advantage over other screenwriters—he'd been a businessman of sorts, having managed his mother's cosmetics branch. He pointed out to Lasky that there was no Hollywood precedent for paying a large amount for an original screenplay and suggested he offer him a percentage of the gross instead. Starting a new contract at Fox and desperate for material, Lasky couldn't let the script get away from him. In their final agreement Sturges got 3.5 percent of the first $500,000 of the gross, 5 percent of of the next $500,000, and 7% of anything over a million, plus a $17,500 advance, a screenwriting royalty deal, the first in Hollywood history.
Marc Norman, What Happens Next
Stephanie Palmer is a consultant, development executive, and the author of Good in a Room
. She was a studio executive at MGM and has been featured on the Today Show, NPR, and the LA Times. In 2005, she founded a consulting company and blog that helps professionals inside and outside the film industry learn to pitch and advance their projects.
This article first appeared in SSN Insider.
A great meeting gets off to a strong start. Unfortunately, even professionals occasionally make these seven “rookie” mistakes in the first few minutes of the meeting.
Luckily, once you know what they are, these mistakes can easily be avoided.
Mistake #1: Assuming they remember you
Imagine….
You’ve set a meeting with a network president or studio head.
In the days leading up to the meeting, you probably think about it frequently. And on the day of the meeting, it’s probably your only meeting.
For the decision-maker, it will be one of a dozen meetings they have that day, interspersed with (literally) a hundred phone calls as well as interruptions, time-sensitive crises, and more. So when you walk in the room, the decision-maker has a lot going on and often the first thought they have when they shake your hand is, “Who is this person and why am I meeting with them?”
The solution is to help them out by introducing yourself, e.g.:
“Hi, I’m (your name). I met (person who got you this meeting) at (recent event).”
“Hi, I’m (your name). (Agent’s name) set this up so I could talk to you about (project name).”
Mistake #2: Pitching too soon
Building rapport and warming up the room should be your first priority in the meeting. If you haven’t established a warm rapport, the buyer is probably not listening to your pitch—he’s still gauging what he thinks of you.
Build rapport first and when you start pitching you’ll have the decision-maker’s attention.
Then, even if the decision-maker doesn’t want to buy your project, you’ll be more likely to get a future meeting—and the chance to pitch again.
Mistake #3: Not including everyone in the room
Occasionally, your pitch meetings will have more than just you and the executive in the room. Sometimes you’ll be pitching to a group.
Even if you think you know who the most powerful person in the room is, introduce yourself to each person, make eye contact, and include everyone in the audience for your pitch.
Mistake #4: Putting yourself down
A common attribute of professional screenwriters is self-deprecation.
A self-deprecating comment can show humility, humor, and can lower expectations—and sometimes, that’s useful.
However, in the context of a pitch meeting (which is like a job interview) you don’t get credit for saying things like:
“I’m not very good at pitching.”
“I’m pretty inexperienced.”
“This is my first time pitching this.”
Buyers want to do business with professionals, not amateurs. Act confident, even if you’re not (yet).
Mistake #5: Starting by “pumping up” your project
Many writers start their pitch with the most common pitching mistake.
Don’t use a “pump-up” preamble that contains sentences like:
“Everyone is going to want to see this.”
“The lead role has Oscar written all over it.”
“You’ll be laughing out loud.”
These sentences have the opposite effect. Instead of whetting the decision-maker’s appetite, it irritates them.
Every dog owner thinks their pet is adorable. Every parent thinks their child is brilliant. It’s expected that you are a fan of your own work. Don’t say it in the room.
Mistake #6: Talking too fast
When you talk fast, you seem nervous.
You may not think you’re talking too fast. But often people who talk too fast don’t know that they are talking too fast, and decision-makers aren’t likely to pull you aside after the meeting to tell you.
Most writers are so eager to present their ideas (and have them be liked) that as soon as they start pitching, the decision-maker feels like they’re being firehosed with a spray of words.
Remember, the decision-maker is hearing your pitch for the very first time. They need more time to absorb the awesomeness of what you’re saying.
Mistake #7: Talking too much
Often due to nerves, many people get “ramble-itis” when they get into the room.
Instead of answering a simple question with a few sentences, they talk for three minutes without coming up for air. Anytime there’s a slight pause, they fill up the space. They give WAY too much detail, share personal issues, and go off on tangents.
Keep your answers simple and focus on the best things you have to say. Remember, the more you talk, the less they hear.
If you avoid these seven mistakes, you’ll get through the first few minutes of the meeting and be seen as a professional.
Then, your pitch will get the attention it deserves.
