When PIA wanted to reach potential students on the web, we ran with this message. After all, without people like the ones trained by PIA, there wouldn’t be a plane in the sky. Fitting Group created a banner advertising campaign that stresses just how important PIA grads are to the world of air travel. These mechanics fly high with hard work, expert training and a love of aircraft. After all, as FG Creative Director Travis likes to point out: Jets are cool.

The ads have performed just as well as the students that inspired them, increasing PIA’s website traffic 46% in just three months.

It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s…a team of highly-specialized orthopedic surgeons!

When Butler Health System asked us to promote the super hero-like skills of their orthopedic specialists, we dubbed the doctors “Ortho Force” and the campaign took off. Tactics like TV spots, outdoor boards, print ads, online banner advertising and Google AdWords drive users to the new Ortho Force website. The site highlights the skills and personality of each member of Ortho Force, proving that these seven unique docs make an unstoppable team.

Can they solve your bone and joint issues? Absolutely. Are they more powerful than a locomotive, faster than a speeding bullet, and able to leap tall buildings at a single bound? Hey, you never know.

In reviewing the work of our agency over the last three years, I began to see a pattern. In our desire to help clients get ahead of the curve, we have often promoted ideas that were viewed as too risky. So the conversation goes something like this:

FG to Banking client: (seeing the regulatory environment loosen up and allow more competition plus the trend in online banking) “We think you should change the name of your bank to UnBank. We’ll advertise that you’re a new kind of bank – completely transparent, with no hidden fees or evil practices. Unbank takes the pain out of the banking relationship for the customer. You’ll launch new products with no minimum balance requirements, no penalties for early withdrawal or loan payoffs, no ATM fees, etc.”

Client: “What? But how will we make money? We can’t do that!”

FG: “You’ll make money the traditional way. Plus you’ll add some new services. And you’ll do it all online, so you’ll dramatically increase the number of customers you have without adding any significant overhead. You don’t even have to increase your advertising budget by much at first. You’ll be putting your ads online, a much more cost effective way to get the word out.”

Client: “We’ll give it some thought.”

FG: (six months later) “Have you thought about it?”

Client: “We’re still thinking about it.”

FG: (six more months later) “Have you thought about it?”

Client: “We’re still trying to figure it out.”

*Banking crisis happens.*

FG: (six more long months later) “Time is running out. Someone else will do it first.”

Client: (thinking “That’s ridiculous, no one will ever do that.”) “We’ve decided it’s not such a great idea. We’ll just hunker down until things get better.”

And then we see a commercial on TV for Ally Bank:

Sigh.

In hindsight, it is easy to see why clients would hesitate in taking our advice. As much as they want to believe our Challenger Brand philosophy and beat the competition, there are never any guarantees of success when you are blazing new trails. No way to measure anticipated ROI. No way to review what others have done, because they haven’t. No way to avoid other people’s mistakes.

We totally understand the client’s point of view: it’s troublesome to think you might not succeed. Sometimes the barrier to doing provocative things is fear of being laughed at or ridiculed. Well, actually, that’s a given…competitors will definitely ridicule and laugh at you…until you succeed. Then they’ll stop laughing. We know this because we have lived it.

There are reasons for clichés such as “no guts, no glory” or “nothing ventured, nothing gained.” We don’t make our recommendations lightly or without serious thought to the business consequences for the client. And we walk the walk.

So as a young Republican, I should be enthused about the following:

Last week, as reported by the Wall Street Journal, candidates to become chairman of the RNC were asked at a debate, among other questions, whether they have any followers on Twitter. Almost all of them responded ‘yes’ and went on to quote the exact numbers of social media followers and friends they had accumulated on not only Twitter, but Facebook as well.

This somewhat unusual line of questioning is part of a larger movement by the Republican party to focus on the Internet and social media after the November drubbing by the more tech-savvy Democrats. In fact, a coalition of Republicans came up with a ten-point action plan outlining how to rebuild the Republican party, with “the Internet” as the number one priority. According to them, “Winning the technology war with the Democrats must be the RNC’s number one priority in the next four years.”

So am I, as the young, social media-pushing Republican, enthused about this? No. Here’s why.

If the Republican party really does plow ahead making the Internet its number one priority, it will be missing a vital step in the process of rejuvenating itself – REBUILDING THE BRAND (or, as we like to say, spanking).

Whether it is social media, online advertising or good old-fashioned print advertising, it doesn’t matter which outlet you’re using if the right message isn’t there. The majority of my peers (who supported Obama to McCain 2:1) were not supporting Obama because they received his tweets or were friends with him on Facebook. They supported him because they wanted change and his brand represented that. Consistently.

The Republican party has already realized it needs to revitalize itself, and that’s an important first step for Challenger Brands. But before it jumps the gun and tries to “get out there” and “connect,” there needs to be consensus about what it stands for and what message it’s trying to portray. Once everyone has a message and cause to rally around, then online support will develop naturally – that’s the beauty of social media.

Until then, tweet off.