Bryan Tenenhouse

With 20 years of integrated agency and marketing experience working on everything from Apple and American Express to Volkswagen, Bryan has established himself as one of Canada's top creative professionals. With extensive expertise in almost every conceivable business category, a deep understanding of customer loyalty and retention, and experience working in every channel including broadcast, print, radio, dm, online, outdoor and in-store, Bryan knows how to build and support brands while generating award-winning business results for his clients.

As Vice-President, Associate Creative Director at Wunderman from 1995 to 2000, Bryan lead creative on such diverse blue chip accounts as RBC Royal Bank, Apple Canada, AOL Canada, AT&T, Canadian Tire Financial, Diners Club International and many others. Then in the year 2000, Bryan moved to Arnold Brand Response (ABR, formerly Vickers & Benson Direct & Interactive) as SVP, Creative Director. During his tenure, the agency was voted one of the top three direct agencies in the country two years in a row by Strategy Magazine. While at ABR he provided creative leadership on such well-known integrated accounts as Canada Investment and Savings, Hbc Credit and Loyalty, Tourism Toronto, Canadian Tourism Commission, BMO Bank of Montreal, Volkswagen, Sprint Canada and many more.

Bryan joined Draft in April of 2006 as EVP, Chief Creative Officer where he lead creative on such blue chip accounts as Canada Post, HP, Ontario Lottery and Gaming, FedEx, Ministry of Health and Johnson & Johnson to name a few. The agency then merged with DRAFTFCB late in 2006. Bryan spent the year successfully transitioning accounts and staff then started his own strategic creative consultancy, The Tenenhouse Project, in November 2007.

Bryan is the recipient of multiple Canadian Marketing Association (CMA/RSVP) Awards for almost every year he's been in the business, plus several international awards including a Gold International ECHO Award for Apple Canada. He is also the recipient of several Mobius Awards and various other business category awards such as "Best in Show" at the Electronic Retailers Association Awards.

Bryan has established a leadership role within the country's largest industry association as a member of the Canadian Marketing Association's Board of Directors. He was founding Chair of the CMA's Direct Marketing Council and has served as a member of CMA's National Conference Committee. Bryan was also a founding Jurist for the National Advertising Awards 2006 (Direct) that sends its winners to the Cannes Festival, and was Chair of the Direct Jury for 2007. He is frequently asked to speak at industry conferences and accredited marketing programs across the country. His articles have appeared in both Marketing Magazine and Strategy.

SEE YA LATer BEAVerS

Have you noticed the billboards and the station domination at Bloor Station with the ubiquitous "er". You can't really miss them. They're everywhere. I have to admit, I've been intrigued. But my first thought when I saw this teaser campaign was, I hope they don't let me down when they pay it off.

Well, you be the judge. Here's the pay-off:http://www.bell.ca/home/

From my perspective, it's actually not bad. But does it make me want to send the link to all my friends because it's so differentiating for a rather commoditized brand? Not so much. Is it clean and smart and more appropriate for the brand? I think it is. I do wonder however, whether Bell has gone from one extreme (cute beavERs, retail) to the other (clean, corporate, even a little cold) a little too quickly. Even the new logo removes any connection to humanity. (Remember the yellow swirl around the face in the old logo?)

In the end, it doesn't really matter. Bell is trying to do things differently and that's probably a good thing. But can the service and product offering fulfill on the promise of the new "BETTer" brand?

Someone actually told me a story recently that best represents how seriously Bell seems to be embracing change. The phone rang, my friend picked it up, said hello and heard: Mr. [Smith], I'm calling from Bell. How can I help you today?

In disbelief, my friend said, well, I'd like a FREE Blackberry Curve.

His account was credited $400.

Seriously.

Maybe, in keeping with the times, this is change we can believe in.

R.I.P. Beavers.

Up with UPS

Last week I posted an article about a commercial that, well, let me just say it’s not my favourite commercial (understatement). However, there is a commercial out there right now that I think is one of the most original on television. Better yet, when you go to the website, you are immersed in an environment that not only cleverly expands on the creative concept initiated by the television but makes you want to stay and explore for a long time. It’s that fun and that informative.

So now that I’ve given you that huge build up, do you agree?

It’s the UPS Whiteboard campaign.

(Interesting side note: The guy writing on the white board is actually the Creative Director on the campaign. His name is Andy Azula.)

Now that you’ve seen the commercial, all I can say is go to the website http://whiteboard.ups.com/ and spend some time there. You won’t be disappointed. And you won't want to leave. I didn't.

Too often, company websites are “brochure-wear”. Long copy all about the company. Very rarely is the site about what "YOU" can do. And rarer still is a site that you actually feel like diving into.

A tale of two Dads and the 20-minute work-out.

I have a question for you. Is it possible for a television ad to overstay its welcome? An excellent example is a long running television spot for Rogers Home Phone. Have you seen it?

"Hey, it's me. Dad. Ever notice that one day you're just hearing about something. And then everybody's talking about it..?"

This commercial has been running, it seems, forever. And not just every day or so. And not just several times a night. I'm talking about several times during the same show. Or even several times during the same commercial pod.

Thats what got me wondering...does overplaying a commercial (especially one lacking in originality or creativity) start to hurt the brand? Does bad advertising make a loyal customer want to switch? I don't think so. But can it turn off potential new customers? And how many GRPs are too many?

On the other hand, no campaign in recent memory has saturated the market more than the Koodo no-frills cell phone campaign -- the one inspired by the old 80's 20-minute workout television show. It feels like it's been running for months on television and outdoor. Yet I don't find myself getting sick of it. In fact, the longer it runs, the more I enjoy it. It's always fun to watch, there are several different executions and they're all well directed.

It's also interesting to note how consistent the campaign is for Koodo versus most of the Rogers work where you find wild shifts in tone between spots.

The best Rogers spot is the one for Personal TV where the young son can't sleep. The Dad lets him watch the hockey game with him and rewinds it to show him a great goal. A sensitive spot. Well done. And a nice, real moment captured. But it's a world away from the smug Dad in the Home Phone commercial.

So I'll end with a few questions for you: What commercials are you sick of? Do you think less of a brand when the advertising turns you off? What commercial can you not get enough of? And where were you when the 20-minute work out was at its peak.

Comparing Apples to Apples.

Recently, I have had the same conversation with two separate people. We were talking about the Dove Revolution campaign. The people with whom I was speaking both said they couldn't believe how well that spot had done at Cannes. It did well in the interactive category. They were aghast that what was basically a television spot would do so well in an integrated category of an award show. After all, there was no real interactive component. How dare they. There was no "online experience" to be had. Nothing to do but watch the spot. I've heard this lament time and again about various campaigns. In fact, the same argument has been waged in the pages of Marketing Magazine recently where, in the letters to the editor section, one Creative Director took another Creative Director to task for arguing that a television spot or outdoor billboard posted on YouTube does not make it "online creative". Perhaps not. But here's where I have to play devils advocate.

To my mind, the internet is obviously a place where you can interact with creative. But it's also much more than that. It's also, like television, a place where you can build a brand and create awareness. Like a direct marketing campaign, it can generate a lead, collect customer information, be extremely personalized, and provide an offer. Like a retail promotion, it can get you to enter a contest and win something spectacular.

Of course, the online space is a discipline. There's a way to produce online creative that is obviously different from how you develop other creative, and you have people who specialize in the space. But it's also a channel with the power to build awareness, generate a response, and engage a consumer.

And that brings me back to the campaign that started the conversation in the first place, the Dove Revolution spot, and the reason I'm writing this post. This was my role as the devil's advocate in my conversation with my friends.

The Dove campaign won at Cannes because it was brilliant creative. Plain and simple. It didn't matter where it appeared. It ran online, but why can't the online space be used to build a brand and generate PR? People who work in the online space know its potential. But do they harbour, dare I say it, some bias that online advertising can only be immersive and clickable? Only "interactive"?

Then, after having had both conversations, I had a revelation. Perhaps the award shows themselves (like Cannes) are creating this controversy and encouraging this argument. Perhaps the problem isn't the creative. Perhaps it's the way the work is submitted and judged. Maybe it's the categories in which the creative must be entered. Was the Dove campaign competing with work that was more experiential? Were apples being compared to apples? And if not, why not? Why don't interactive award shows create categories that break the work down into the objectives of the campaign. Mass/Awareness online ads should compete with online ads that were created to do the same job. Promotional campaigns should compete with campaigns against those objectives. And so on. Perhaps they'd have to rethink how the whole award show is built. Perish the thought!

In the mean time, don't blame the Dove campaign for being beautiful. Just let it compete with its own kind.

Name that Spot!

I just saw a car commercial while watching one of my guilty pleasure shows (don't ask) and paused it before any branding revealed itself. I turned to my wife, who had seen the spot several times, and asked her who the commercial was for. She couldn't remember and neither could I. We both took a guess and we were both wrong. The logo isn't actually revealed until the end of the spot. Go figure. Here are descriptions of 5 current spots running on Canadian television (including the spot in question). See if you can name the products they're for.

1. A team of contortionists form the shape of a car.
2. A woman puts her baby to bed. An alarm goes off and the baby is now a teenager getting out of bed. In the next shot, we see him kissing his mom goodbye and leaving the house as the mother looks on lovingly.
3. A computer is pulled out of an inter-office envelope while a cool song is playing in the background. (Come on, that one’s easy.)
4. A woman is climbing on a rock wall as a grandmother repels down beside her. A microwave then drops down on a rope. The grandmother opens it, takes out the product (still hanging from the rope) and feeds the younger woman this product.
5. Two identical fish float unto a white background to a cool song.

Clearly some of the above spots are more effective and memorable than others. Some are easy to connect to their product because the product is central to the concept of the commercial. The creative doesn’t overpower the message or the product. Or the brand is so consistent across all media that the spot could only be for that product.

The key benchmark for evaluating whether a TV commercial works or not is, can you remember what the commercial was for after being entertained by it. Do you remember it the next day or a week later. If the answer is no, the spot in question wasn’t worth the money it took to produce it, or the cost of the media. It wasn’t worth a dollar. It’s that simple.