Your brand's multicultural strategy is also its growth strategy.

New census data shows that minorities are now the majority in 12% of counties across the U.S.  In 370 counties across 36 states, non-Hispanic whites accounted for less than half the population as of July 2015.

And this trend will accelerate.  Three quarters of Americans age 55+ are white.  Whereas among those aged 18-34, that figure drops to only 56%, and even lower among minors.

In explaining his greatness, Wayne Gretzky credited his father's advice to skate to where the puck is going, not where it is.

For marketers, that mean skating to an increasingly multicultural customer base.

Why I love working in advertising.

I love working in advertising.

We help companies care about their customers' hopes and dreams.  We help companies grow.  We get to collaborate with smart, funny, talented people with diverse backgrounds and interests.

Several times a year I serve as a guest lecturer at University of California, Irvine and Chapman University.  I enjoy mentoring the next generation of advertising professionals.  They remind me how lucky I am.  When I look out across the classroom, I see in their eyes that they would walk across hot coals to be doing what I do.

I always begin my talks with my profession of love and appreciation for my career in advertising, for being able to spend my days at the intersection of business and everything imaginable.  A day in advertising is a day spent absorbing market dynamics; social trends; new technologies; design; emerging media platforms; pop culture influences.  It's a business of ideas – ideas born of hard work, knowledge and serendipity.

True, it can be a day and night job.  And it can be emotionally draining and stressful.  But, again, we get to work in a business of ideas.  That doesn't suck.

I recently spoke to a group of University of Michigan students who asked me to share my advice as they embark on their careers.  Here's what I told them:

1. Pursue a profession, not a job.  Whatever you decide to do, be the consummate professional. Accumulate skills and knowledge.  Be great at a few things and not simply average at many things. 
2. Be curious.  Embrace your career as a journey of learning.  You need not know everything.  But you need to ask more interesting questions of those who do know.  Questions provoke ideas and progress.
3. Fail.  Learn.  Repeat.  (Need I say more?)
4. Be accountable.  Blaming others is not only is a waste of time, it's a wasted opportunity to learn and grow.  Victimhood serves no purpose.  
5. Be dependable.  We value people who do what they say they're going to do.  (True in life, true in business.)  Demonstrate early on in your career your ability to get things done.  
6. Solve problems.  Don't whine about problems.  It's what we're paid to do.  The sales graph pointing downwards is a problem.  Unhappy franchisees is a problem.  High bounce rates on a website is a problem.  Negative brand perceptions are a problem.  We fix problems. 
7. Have a voice.  Meetings aren't a spectator sport.  Have the courage to show you are a thinking individual.  Always have a point of view.  Don't worry about whether your perspective is right or wrong.  Expressing your idea will be a catalyst for others to challenge or build upon it.  And this is how ideas are born, from the collision of diverse perspectives.
8. Reimagine yourself, often.  Don't allow yourself to grow stale.  Enroll in the training your company offers.  Accept opportunities that force you to learn.  Creative people must continually evolve.  Years ago I had the good fortune to attend a talk given by George Martin, the legendary producer of the Beatles.  This was his lasting lesson from the Beatles – they experimented and took risks and, by doing so, avoided a repetitious formula.
9. Always ask "why" and "why not."  These two seemingly simple questions pack tremendous power.  Why challenges the status quo while also signaling curiosity.  Why not is the eternal anthem of optimists.  It's hard to go wrong navigating by these two questions.
10. Learn to be a commercial anthropologist.  I believe this is central to succeeding in advertising.  Your anthropologist side requires a fascination with people and the strength to observe without judgement.   The commercial side is a constant reminder that advertising exists to help companies sell.  Keep both sides in equal balance.  Too much human observation without bottom line impact isn't good.  Too much selling devoid of human insights creates a commodity business. 

My parting advice to these students is always the same:  I don't care what you end up doing.  But thirty years from now, make sure you can stand up and say "I love what I do for a living."  

Anatomy of a TV viewer.

Interesting new data on TV usage among Millennials (via Adweek).

Tips on starting a successful agency career.

I was invited last night to speak to the Chapman University Ad Club and offer career advice to these aspiring advertising agency professionals.

This is a switched-on group, many of whom are preparing to compete in the Ad Fed National Student Advertising Competition.  Having just judged the District 10 regionals in Shreveport, I know how long and hard they've been working on their presentation.

As I told the group last night, this summer will mark my 30th year in advertising,  I still love what I love what I do for a living, mainly because advertising sits at the intersection of everything – business, art, pop culture, technology, societal trends, the media revolution.

I thought I'd share an abbreviated copy of my slides in the hope that it will provide some inspiration and guidance to those who want to be equally passionate about their career in 2042.

Starting your advertising career

30 years in 30 minutes: Tips for starting your advertising career. from David Murphy

What agency vets can learn from students.

I spent the last two days being inspired about my profession by college students who would walk through fire to get a shot at a similar career.

The occasion was AdFed's District 10 National Student Advertising Competition in Shreveport, where I served as a judge.  Students from 20 universities competed as full-fledged agency teams on a live case given to them by Nissan.  Their assignment was to help the automaker increase its share among multicultural millennials, and they did so by conducting their own primary research, developing positioning strategies, creating fully integrated creative campaigns against a $100m media plan that they researched, priced and designed.  The teams had been working on this assignment since last fall, and it showed.

I was in awe of their poise, their professionalism and their fearlessness.  They rocked it.

During my two days I couldn't help but think that agency professionals – those who already have the careers these kids covet – could learn a lot from these students.  This goes for me, too.

They did their homework.  They knew their content and exuded confidence in their points of view.  Too many times we see agency professionals "wing it" due to lack of prep time or sheer laziness.  This is apparent in meetings where it's often easy to spot the person who read the executive summary versus the individual who took the time to probe, dig and validate.

They showed passion and enjoyment.  They exuded the feeling that they had fun working on the assignment.  Clients love this, but too many times are left wondering whether or not the agency team actually likes the client's product or company.  (Think how that must feel.)

They behaved as an ego-free team.  Although they had their account director, media director and creative director, these were merely titles, not dueling fiefdoms.  They came across as one team with one dream.

They presented with confidence.  Granted, they had a lot of rehearsal time.  But it is often shocking how many times we see agency professionals unable to present.  We are in the communications business, and one that sells at that.  Presentation skills should be a given.  

They took risks with their ideas.  They behaved as if they had everything to gain and nothing to lose.  This mindset liberated them to present ideas that were unexpected and bold.  They weren't trying to play it safe or make people happy.  They played to win big.

This summer will mark my 30th year in the business, from when I started as an Assistant Account Executive at Ogilvy in New York.  Three decades later I am still passionate about what I do.  I love the left brain/right brain nature of the job.  I love that advertising sits at the intersection of business, art, pop culture, entertainment, anthropology, psychology and technology.  I love the smart, passionate and rebellious people this industry attracts.

My hope is that these kids will say the same thing in the year 2042.  Between now and then, I hope they never lose the traits they displayed this week, and that our industry embraces this next generation.  We need them more than they need us.  As I've written about before, the Millennial Generation has the skills to help save and reinvent Madison Avenue.  Let's give them their shot on their terms.

What I learned at Lollapalooza.

I just returned from three days at Lollapalooza with my daughters. Great time with the girls.  Outstanding festival – really well planned and run.  (Chicago is a fantastic city!)

While I've spent years creating events for youth marketing programs, often from the outside looking in, this gave me chance to experience youth marketing from the mosh pit out.

By and large, the marketing was fairly flat-footed.   The usual branded swag became white noise.  The best efforts came from a handful of marketers whose presence added something to the fan's experience.

The best by far came from my old friends at Toyota.  Their tent wasn't an escape from music – it celebrated music and creative expression.  There you could hop in a Corolla retrofitted to be a four-door photo booth; spin to win some cool prizes; listen to little-known, up-and-coming bands (the roots of Lolla, right?) who performed in the tent and were streamed over the interweb; as well as create art and posters.

Estancia Wines showed that it understood a simple fact about three-day concerts:  people need to sit in the shade.  The Estancia tent was set up like an outdoor ultra-lounge, featuring leather chairs and couches, cafe tables and stools, and, of course, a wine bar.

AOL did a decent job promoting its Lifestream service by setting up a helpful charging station.  Very simple and insightful.

The most well-intended but ineffective effort came from AT&T, which handed out ear buds to promote that it was offering free wi-fi inside the festival.  The only problem was that its wi-fi coverage didn't extend throughout Grant Park. Epic Fail.  (They've learned what veterans of Lolla and Coachella have long known – 3G networks become paralyzed by tens of thousands of people simultaneously blogging, posting, tweeting, texting, poking and uploading.)

My daughter Lauren has a great idea for any marketer gearing up for next year:  Sponsor a tent where fans can decorate and personalize their own "find me" stick, and perhaps upload the image to their friends.  I noticed in the crowd how some people brought poles and sticks decorated with stuffed cats, balloons, jesters, etc – anything they could hoist up to help their friends find them in the sea of fans.

Let me not mislead you into believing that I actually spent three days thinking about this stuff.  It was all about the music.  And here's the music I really loved:

The Strokes
Arcade Fire
The National
Frank Turner
Against Me
The Walkmen
Yeasayer
Matt & Kim
Gogol Bordello (tied with Matt & Kim for the most entertaining band)
Social Distortion
and, of course, Green Day

Me and Green Man are tight.

Why Millennials will save Madison Avenue.

(As published in the Minneapolis Star Tribune.)

Listen in on most brand planning meetings and one word comes up over and over – Millennials.  Sometimes called GenY or EchoBoomers, this is the generation born between 1982 and 2000.  Millennials are no longer solely on the playground; they're running companies (Mark Zuckerberg), entertaining (Rihanna) and winning Olympic Gold (Shaun White).  To marketers, Millennials represent a 76 million strong brand-conscious demographic.

Recently, however, I’ve started viewing this generation through a different lens.  Beyond being a coveted advertising target, the characteristics that define this generation make them extremely well-equipped to re-architect the modern advertising agency.  

I believe this to be true because Millennials are widely viewed as a generation of collaborative, tech-savvy, multicultural, problem-solvers – the very skills necessary to address the questions marketers increasingly voice about their advertising agencies.

Let’s break it down by examining some of the defining traits of Millennials, as outlined by Lynn Lancaster and David Stillman in their recent book, The M-Factor, and examine how a career in advertising meshes with these values.

Millennials are inherently collaborative:  This is a generation that believes we > me.  They’ve been working in teams since kindergarten as classrooms increasingly emphasized group participation.  Soccer became the suburb’s biggest after-school sport because it prizes team flow over star-power.  Advertising is a great profession for people who thrive on collaboration (or “no walls”, as we call it at BD’M).  The agencies that are succeeding are those that have banished silos, where media, creative and strategy form one big mosh pit of ideas.

Millennials are the first multicultural generation:  This generation has grown up in a time in which the U.S. experienced dramatic growth in immigration and racial integration.  Multiculturalism is simply a fact of life for this group, reinforced early on by Sesame Street, and later in the classroom, as well as in film and music.  Let’s face a hard truth:  the advertising industry must do a better job when it comes to diversity. This is not simply a politically correct goal – it is an economic imperative. We're in the business of helping clients connect with main street America.  Agencies succeeded at this over the decades largely because we mirrored the face of America.  This is no longer true, and unless this changes we put at risk our ability to give our clients relevant and intimate customer insights.  Millennials can play a huge role in reshaping the face of agencies and our ability to understand and connect with multicultural America.

Millennials want to be innovators and problem-solvers: Marketers hire us because the lines on the graph are heading the wrong way.  At its core, advertising professionals solve problems by inspiring clients to embrace new solutions.  More and more these solutions involve online, mobile and social media.  Millennials have been training for this job since birth.

Millennials want to feel they are contributing: Boomers and Xers sometimes label Millennials a needy group requiring constant feedback.  To be sure, this is a generation that received trophies for simply participating, not to mention an endless flow of reinforcement from their “helicopter parents.”  Advertising is an excellent career for people who thrive on instant feedback.  In this business you’re either a hero or a goat; there’s nowhere to hide.  Whether you’re writing the TV spot, mapping the online user experience, or crunching the CPMs for the media plan, your work is out there in the white hot spotlight for all to critique. 

Millennials want a job in which they can be heard:  On the night before a pitch, a great idea knows no title.  If you are a so-called “junior” and feel you have the answer, irrespective of the fact that your title has half the syllables as that of your boss, shout out and be prepared to defend your point of view. Anybody who has worked with me knows that I refer to meetings as a full-contact sport.  Come play.

Millennials want to make a difference in the world:  Like it or not, we live in a consumer culture bombarded by media in all its forms.  Smart, talented and creative people can get intimately involved in creating marketing ideas that make a difference.  Witness Starbucks’ support of Red; Pepsi’s strategy to crowd-source world-changing ideas; Target’s support of the arts; GE’s ecomagination; or Ford’s support for the Susan G. Komen Foundation.

Millennials want to express who they are through work:  Good luck expressing yourself in a huge corporation.  Conversely, an agency is like high school for grown ups.  You can earn social currency through your individual sense of style, taste in music, tattoos, social causes or antics at the last party.   We really don’t care if you are gay, straight, indie, emo, conservative or downright crazy, just as long as you have smart ideas and come through when it counts.

To capitalize on the opportunity that Millennials present, the advertising industry has to begin making a clear case why this profession should attract this generation's best and brightest.  (Anybody who hasn’t viewed Rory Sutherland’s 2009 speech at TED –“Life lessons from an ad man.”– should take a few moments to watch it and reflect on the economic value and cultural impact we create when we do our jobs well.)

The 4As must ramp up campus recruiting and attract talented graduates by connecting the values of this generation with the unique career opportunities advertising agencies present – a career that stands at the nexus of business, media, entertainment, technology, pop culture and any and all new trends.

Most importantly, senior leaders of advertising agencies need to stop dwelling on what they had to do back in the day to get ahead and instead unleash the creativity and energy of the twenty-somethings buried in their agencies.  Any agency that is having a hard time grappling with social and digital media is simply an agency that hasn’t tapped its in-house experts – its Millennials.

Go Forth.

Wieden + Kennedy’s new campaign for Levis is stunning in its truth, its insight and its audacity.

The great brands are underpinned by an essential and enduring truth. By linking to the words of Walt Whitman and, on its new website, the United States Constitution, Levis has reconnected with the truth of its brand. Levis is America. And America has always been shaped by people with the courage and tenacity to dream and work towards a better tomorrow.

Its unique insight is in seeing the hollowness of most Millennial-targeted messages of hope and optimism, or perhaps more specifically, how bankrupt these messages must feel to Millennials in the current economy. Instead, “Go Forth” implies that hope and optimism are found by individuals who venture forward and work towards their dream. True of the framers of our Constitution. True of the gold miners in 1849 (the original denim crowd). True of Mr. Whitman. It must also be true of people today if we are to achieve our potential.

But the audacity, the brilliant audacity, to create a website in which citizens can co-create, edit and share their take on the Constitution is to be celebrated. It transforms the Constitution into a communal wall posting which, if you will momentarily suspend your judgment about that concept, is exactly what the Constitution needs to be: a living, shared, and debated document chronicling the will of the people.


Go forth indeed.

Damn right the website's fun

PS: I went to Canadian Club's website and used the app they've created to let people customize their own "damn right" ads. Here's my Dad with his life-long groupie.

Damn right it sells.

I've been a fan of Canadian Club's "damn right" campaign from my first sighting. It's audacious and completely counter-intuitive. Selling an out-of-date brand to younger customers is not easy. So I was really glad to read the Ad Age article reporting that the campaign is increasing sales and reversing years of downward spiral.

The insight is so simple: you're dad was a lot like you my friend, going out, pounding drinks and looking to score. But he did it with style. The line is perfect -- "Damn right your dad drank it."

It's always good to see a client rewarded for embracing a bold idea. Kudos to BBDO and the brand managers at Canadian Club.