At Explore Communications we are all incredibly immersed in our work – it is what makes us so good at our jobs (among other things like creativity, attention to detail, and general smarts). We know each client’s campaign inside and out – what are the goals (objectives), how do we accomplish the goals (strategies) and what tools do we use to implement our strategies (tactics)? This full immersion also means that sometimes work begins to bleed into our personal life and I am guilty about thinking about work even when I am not in the office (I have had one too many dreams about excel documents!). But sometimes it even means applying work to my personal life.
I have a wonderfully wild three year old son and very sweet 10 month old baby girl. One night, as I lay in bed trying to fall back to sleep after waking up for the third time with the baby, in my sleep deprived delusional state, my strategic media mind kicked into full gear and I began to analyze parenting as if it were an advertising campaign. What is the end game? What are the goals and how do we accomplish those? What is the measure of success?
Objectives (in order of priority)
- Keep the children alive
- Don’t raise a**holes
- Don’t forget to enjoy all the moments– time flies and they will be grown before we know
Strategies
- Provide healthy meals three times a day
- Encourage empathy, display daily acts of kindness
- Cultivate independence and confidence
- Be in the moment, be patient
Tactics
- Bribe with the promise of ice cream after each meal
- Lots of timeouts for mean words and mean hands
- Pre-school – thank goodness for teachers!
- Deep breaths and wine….lots of wine
So how is our campaign performing? Well, like any campaign, some days are better than others, it varies by the time of day and day of the week, but overall…there has been a lot of wine. But also a lot of hugs and love and joy and so much exhaustion.
The true ROI on this is pretty far off – 18-ish years – so we will keep optimizing and reevaluating as we go…as I am sure the goals will change and so will the strategies. So I will be sure to keep you in the loop. In the meantime, please send wine.
