m-cause

Nick Nyhan, the CEO of Dynamic Logic, A Millward Brown Company, gave an inspirational presentation at P&G a few weeks ago.  Recently, I asked him if he could provide a few of his thoughts to m-cause readers.  In the interview below, we discuss a range of topics (Brand Ideals, Personal Branding, & Social Media Marketing).  Some good nuggets in this one.  Enjoy!

Can you tell us about Dynamic Logic and the services you offer customers?

[Nick Nyhan (DLNYC CEO)] Dynamic Logic is a research company that serves as an independent evaluator of marketing effectiveness. Basically, clients use us to measure the performance of their messaging activities in both digital and traditional platforms and its impact on their brand. Brand metrics serve as a good ruler to measure across different media platforms and we think that is where the big questions are. Our vision is to teach people how to be “tradigital” brand builders globally. We collect own data but can also work with other data sets for linkage.

Today there is a lot of buzz around branding from the “inside-out”.  You believe that by putting brand ideals first, everything else (product innovation, brand messaging, etc.) will flow from there.

[Nick Nyhan (DLNYC CEO)] The main idea is that while product, packaging, marketing strategy are all important, great brands - or great companies for that matter - stand for something more than what they sell. They can articulate an ideal, and more to the point, their customers can articulate that ideal as well. Sometimes ideals are used in taglines (Apple: Think Different), but generally they are part of an assumed personality of the company. For example, there aren’t many people who can articulate a Google tagline, but many people would feel they could personify Google and guess what they would do or not do. A simple test would be if you were to ask a CEO what matters beyond profits, what would they say? And then, if you were to compare what was said to how the company or brand comes across - is it consistent?

What are the Dynamic Logic Brand Ideals and how did you build these from the ground up?

[Nick Nyhan (DLNYC CEO)] For my own experience, I didn’t know I would create a research company. But I knew I what situation I wanted: to be part of a group of smart, diverse, hard-working people who were able to “see around the corner” and build accordingly. Those were the characteristics of a company that were important to me and the DL business fit those concepts (but could have been a lot of things) . Our brand challenge was to build credibility so people would believe in our research. We chose a focused path that was limited but also made us experts quickly. Our first ideal was “to save the free internet”… sort of goofy but also true because our research was showing value in unclicked-ads at a time when the whole industry was under-fire. It also made the research seem more noble and I actually heard staff members saying it to other people. [After 9/11, when what we did seemed really insignificant, this helped a lot.] Along the way, our ideals evolved: 1) respect ideas more than titles (this was important internally and instead of using the term we called them “coaches” in that they should support (coach) staff to perform well, not the other way around); 2) challenge and grow again (more internal give junior people opportunities above their title and promote from within); 3) Do the right thing even if harder both internal and external: not looking for easy shortcut and sticking true to vision). 4) Today, I think an emerging ideal for us is about teaching - teach our clients, but also people on our team. I like it also because teaching is implicitly caring about the knowledge and well-being of others, versus trying to hog all the expertise for yourself.

You believe that we should “Tap into our own personal ideals” by pushing ourselves, pushing our company & taking inspired risks.  By doing this, we will make ourselves interesting to others. How have you seen this play out in your own career?

[Nick Nyhan (DLNYC CEO)] Tapping into what makes life interesting to you and then weaving that into work will, I believe, make work more interesting to you. This is not ground-breaking thinking, but it is so simple that it is easily over-looked. For myself, I was working in research and marketing after being an English major and then working in politics. What did I like in those pursuits that I could also find in market research? A lot, it turns out. English was about seeing, writing, expression of ideas. Writing and expression is important in any field (especially when you are trying to raise money for a new company!). And story-telling is a huge part of research (what is story the numbers tell). One year I hired a professional story-teller to come into our DL All Staff retreat to teach the elements of story-telling. And on the political front, for me that was always about trying to get something done that is big. What we were doing in our own little world of online advertising, was big. And it took a lot to get people to buy into a new company, an unproven methodology, to get publishers, adserver and agencies to work together for a common good - those are same things I dealt with in Washington DC for a few years.

Were there also some difficult times along the way?

[Nick Nyhan (DLNYC CEO)] There were many times, where I went home frustrated, thinking I was wasting my time on something that wasn’t very important. And honestly, it wasn’t. But what was important was the skills I was learning - and teaching - to others. Learning HOW to take risks and be comfortable with it. Pushing myself and motivating others. Breaking the mold a bit and finding creativity in the day to day of business (it can be there). There were times when we we wold go through a re-org or when we were re-shaping our budget - and when you push yourself and others - it becomes exciting. But on the days when I would get down on what I was doing, I would tell myself that this is practice for something bigger. One bigger thing is children - being a parent is really big and some of these same skills apply (but kids care less than staff). But in another way, because of the risks we took and bets we made, I am now able to work for Obama campaign for a few months, so maybe some of this can be put to the test.

As Dynamic Logic measures digital marketing effectiveness, you must find it very challenging to deal with the current social media marketing explosion. How will social media measurement evolve from your perspective?

[Nick Nyhan (DLNYC CEO)] Social media is really cool phenomenon, not just the great success of a bunch of web sites. It is unique in that the consumers of the content are also the producers. A funnier side is how it automates the processes of maintaining many friendships in a time-compressed world (aka take the name “friendster” for example). Imagine, software that helps you keep in touch with a lot more people but with less effort - big idea. (Now I can have so many more shallow relationships!) Kidding aside, I hear from people under 25 that if they are not on a good social network, they have no social life. The impact is two sided: on one hand, I like how empowering it is so regular people can be heard and be influential just based on the strength of their ideas. On the other hand, it generates more blather that is not of high quality. I wonder if truly caring editors will get drowned out - or just more people linking to them. As it increases, it may cause a resurgence in the importance of a good idea and creative (versus the algorithms and targeting phase marketing is in now) - when everyone is a publisher and there is so much content/clutter - only stellar ideas will stand out or get passed along.  From a measurement perspective. You have to measure it in comparable ways to traditional marketing just so you can compare on some apples to apples way (reach, brand, behavior). But then there is an added element of the very simple but super powerful “pass-along from a friend” element which is the greatest marketing in the world. Someone you (probably trust and like) telling you to check out something. To measure that requires a way of quantifying not just the impact of a message/creative/campaign but also the contribution of the source. That is something we are working on. I think it is doable, but not simple. Yet, we don’t need to overcomplicate things everytime a new approach emerges. Sometimes in digital there is a tendency to declare “new rules” and want to re-invent. Sometimes, the most revolutionary thing is not throwing everything out and starting over with new metrics and methods, but simply tweaking what you have to incorporate the new platforms.