How to Present a Compelling Argument When You're Not Naturally Persuasive

Has this happened to you before? You come up with a great idea for a new project, but when it comes to explaining to your colleagues why it deserves their attention, you just can't seem to generate the necessary excitement or buy-in.

Coming up with a good idea is only half the battle. If you ever want to see your ideas implemented, you need to back up your plan with a stellar argument. As you probably know, this is much easier said than done.

Crafting a compelling argument can seem like an elusive art dominated by the naturally charismatic and extroverted, but it really comes down to a basic awareness and application of what Aristotle called the modes of persuasion.

In the 4th Century BC, the Greek philosopher defined three fundamental types of persuasion techniques:

Ethos refers to arguments grounded in the speaker's credibility, e.g., You are more likely to believe the claim: "This new phone is innovative" if Steve Jobs said it versus if Charlie Sheen said it.

Logos refers to arguments grounded in logic and reason, e.g., "This phone is innovative because it has a battery that was scientifically proven to last 500% longer than any other phone battery on the market."

Pathos refers to arguments that appeal to our emotions, e.g., "This was the last phone Steve Jobs created before his death."

To help you begin developing more engaging, sophisticated arguments, we've taken Aristotle's modes of persuasion and explained how you can best leverage each one. Whether you're pitching a new idea to a client or giving a presentation to your colleagues, these tips will help you take your case up a notch.

Ethos 

Give yourself a credibility audit.

Your reputation really does precede you.

Before you even walk into the conference room, your audience will have preconceived notions about you, and about the presentation they're about to receive. What do they currently know about you? What don't they know? Is there anything about your reputation (or your agency's reputation) that could potentially support your argument? Anything that could potentially hurt it?

The degree to which preconceived notions will influence your actual argument depends heavily on the situation at hand, but it's not a bad idea to think critically about the way you initially come across to your audience. You could present an otherwise flawless argument, but if there are any external credibility issues that aren't addressed, you could be looking at an unswayed audience.

Credibility issues aren't always the massive, obvious problems you'd expect. When I say "credibility issue," you probably think of something dramatic, like a history of pathological lying or ponzi scheming. More often than not, credibility issues come in the form of subtle inconsistencies. For example, if you're trying to sell a client on a new SEO strategy, but your agency's website isn't ranking for a single keyword, then you may have a credibility issue on your hands.

So what should you do if you discover a potential credibility issue? Don't panic. You don't need to directly address every potential controversy (your audience probably doesn't want to hear about the time you accidentally threw a plastic cup in a paper-only recycle bin) -- but you should address the ones that are relevant to your argument.

Going back to my earlier example, you should explain why your agency isn't focusing on SEO right now, but point to some examples of other businesses you've helped with SEO.

It's better to control the conversation around potentially touchy subjects than wait for someone in your audience to bring them up on their own. If that happens, you could be looking at an even bigger credibility issue: They might wonder if you were being willfully ingenuous before, and if you're hiding anything else.

Logos

When it comes to supporting facts, focus on quality over quantity.

More evidence equals a better argument, right? Not quite. While it can be tempting to put together a presentation with 15 statistic-heavy slides worth of supporting evidence, this isn't likely to have a powerful impact on your audience. In fact, overwhelming them with an onslaught of facts and figures will probably make them tune out -- even if your facts are all logically sound and supportive of your main premise.

Just because a fact technically lends support to your claim doesn't mean it will sway your audience. The best evidence needs to not only support your claim, but also have a connection to your audience.

Say you're pitching a digital ads project to a small business, and you mention that 25% of Fortune 500 companies have seen a direct sales increase from using full-page mobile ads. Yes, that statistic shows mobile ads can have an impact on sales, but it doesn't connect back to your audience in a meaningful way. Small businesses and Fortune 500 companies don't approach advertising from the same perspective, so this piece of evidence isn't likely to make a compelling case to your audience.

As a general rule, focus on finding a few relevant pieces of evidence to support your claim, rather than a slew of facts with loose ties to your main point. A small handful of strong facts are more likely to stick with your audience than many loose claims, so choose your supporting evidence selectively, always being mindful of the connection back to your audience. If you can't draw a line back to your audience, toss that piece of evidence out of your argument. 

Pathos

Focus on the story, not just the logic.

When sitting down to develop an argument, most people fall into the logic trap: They put the vast majority of their time and resources into making sure each of their main points is followed by a list of bullet points to back up their claims. When the presentation rolls around, their audience is uninspired, and the speaker is confused: "Why didn't they love my logically-reasoned and perfectly valid arguments?"

Your audience isn't grading your presentation for logical validity. Don't get me wrong, logic and structure are important to the foundation of an argument -- but they can't stand on their own. To craft a truly compelling argument that incites action from your audience, you need to inject a hefty dose of emotion and narrative. Good storytelling is what separates impactful arguments from mediocre ones.

You might be thinking: "But I'm writing a budget proposal -- how am I supposed to make an emotionally-appealing narrative out of that?"

It's actually a lot less complicated that you'd expect. Start by sketching out a simple emotional map of your presentation. How will your audience feel before the presentation even begins?

Maybe you know morale has been low lately at your agency, and the team needs a reason to feel optimistic about the future. Maybe you know that your budget proposal presentation isn't a hotly anticipated meeting, and you need to give your audience something to get excited (or even just mildly amused) about.

Identifying the preexisting mood of your audience will help you figure out what emotions you'll need to incite to keep their attention and pull them into your story. Once you've figured out how they'll feel at the outset, determine how you want them to feel at the end. What emotions will make them more likely to support your argument? What story can you tell to lead them towards these emotional conclusions?

For example, if you're pitching a website redesign project and you know that the client doesn't currently think it will make a difference to their marketing efforts, you'd want to incite excitement and optimism in your presentation.

To do this, you could weave in a narrative that focuses on how the website redesign will lead towards a better future for the client's business. It's not about forcing a narrative onto your facts, it's about finding the story that already exists and running with it. 

Know Your Audience and Setting

So how do you know when to appeal to ethos, pathos, or logos? The key is understanding your audience, and considering what form of appeal is most likely to resonate with them at that particular time and place.

Don't stress about including all three modes of persuasion in every presentation. Feel out your audience beforehand and determine which types of arguments are most likely to appeal to them in the given setting. For example, a budget meeting will definitely call for some strong logical appeals, but adding in an emotional appeal might beef up your claims and result in a more compelling claim. It's all about striking the right balance of appeals for your particular audience and circumstances.

via HubSpot Marketing Blog http://bitly.com/2eNkISw

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How to Excel in Community Management: Advice From 12 Experts

Community management has become an essential part of a successful long-term social media marketing strategy. In fact, it's turned into more than just a social media strategy: Community management leads to customer retention, and studies have shown that profits increase 95% when retention grows over 5%.

In order to get to the point where community management turns into business growth, you need to first put in the effort to develop deep personal relationships with customers and people in your community that may or may not be interested in buying your services. They're part of your community simply because their beliefs are similar to those of your brand and industry leadership. 

Vanilla Forums, along with 12 leading community management experts, has written about building a foundation for a great community, as well as the strategic steps along the way, to help grow that community and ultimately your business.

In this ebook, written by 12 leading community management experts, you'll learn:

• The best tactics in community management to build up to your first 100 members.
• The key metrics executive teams use to measure community success and how you can start incorporating those metrics from the start.
• How to find a great moderator.
• Much more about building and fostering a healthy community to fuel your business' growth.

Click here to check out How to Learn Community Management from the Experts.

via HubSpot Marketing Blog http://bitly.com/2fFAigu

The Ultimate Guide to Creating Shareable Infographics Using PowerPoint or Keynote

Want to learn how to plan, publish, and promote viral infographics?

You’re in the right place. But let’s start by making something clear: If you’re thinking, “I’m not a natural designer" or “I’ve never made an infographic before,” you’re not alone.

However, instead of making excuses, answer this: Have you ever made a presentation in PowerPoint or Keynote?

Great. Believe it or not, you’ve got the skills to make an infographic. And now that I know you can do this, I'm here to walk you through the seven steps that I take when creating infographics.

The plan is to cover each of those steps in detail so you know exactly how to create and launch infographics for your business as well. Let's dive in.

How to Create Shareable Infographics Using PowerPoint or Keynote

Step #1: Choose topic and collect content.

If you’ve already got a blog and some content under your belt, the best place to find a topic is to look at your most popular content from the past.

Just head over to Google Analytics (or dig into your HubSpot software) and pull up your most popular pages (from the last 6-12 months) by going to Behavior > Site Content > All Pages.

From there you’ll be able to see which topics your readers are already most interested in.

It’s a smart idea to match your infographics to the topic of your most popular blog posts because:

• First, you’ll be able to content from those blog posts in your infographic to fast-track your project.
• Second, you already know your audience is interested in those topics.

For example, one of the clients I work with owns an interior design firm and her blog has some great content on it. But the most popular blog post month after month was her article on “questions to ask when interviewing an interior designer.”

So we decided to use that content and create an infographic around that topic:

Because all of the content was already written, all we had to do was come up with the design.

Alright, so what if you don’t have a lot of content to work with?

I recommend that you head over to Google Trends, Google’s Keyword Planner, HubSpot's Keywords App, and/or BuzzSumo to research what’s being searched for and shared most often.

If you’ve never used Google Trends, then you’re in for a treat. You can use this tool to see what topics are trending and most popular in real time. Plus, you can see how popular a topic was in the past and then compare that to other topics.

Check out the popularity of “infographics” vs. “magazine ads” from 2004 - 2016:

So how do you guarantee your topic will be a home run?

Use Google’s Keyword Planner (HubSpot customers: Try HubSpot's Keyword App) to see the exact number of people who search for specific keywords and topics so you can instantly gauge the popularity of a topic. Since we’re talking about creating viral infographics in this post, don’t forget to also research your topic in BuzzSumo so you can find the most shared topics and content online to confirm people's interest. 

Once you’ve got a topic, it’s time to do some research. One of the best parts about infographics is that you don’t have to write much copy by yourself -- almost every single infographic online includes quotes, data, and resources from other people and brands.

To get started, you'll want to open up an app like Evernote and write down everything you personally know about the topic you’re covering, plus every sub-topic you want to research.

After you’ve got your own notes down, head over to Google Search and start the research process. For example, type in phrases like: “best (my topic) articles," “(my topic) statistics,” “(my topic) quotes,” “(my topic) blogs,” and “(my topic) infographics.”

This will give you dozens of great resources to pull ideas and data from that you can include in your infographic. Just don’t forget to save the website address (URL) for each resource you cite.

Lastly, it’s important that you remember this is an infographic -- not a blog post. That means you should only collect the most important, focused data and resources. Ignore all the gritty details and “fluff.”

Action items for Step #1:

• Choose and validate a topic for your infographic
• Collect and cite important resources you’ll quote

Step #2: Create and re-size a blank presentation.

This step is super easy. All you need to do here is create a blank presentation deck in either PowerPoint or Keynote and resize it to the shape/size of an infographic.

Personally, I prefer Keynote. But rest assured that every single tool you need to make infographics are available in both PowerPoint and Keynote.

Let’s start with PowerPoint: Click “Design” then “Slide Size” to resize your deck.

(Note: 6.5 x 50 inches in the maximum size in PowerPoint.)

For Keynote: Go to the “Document” options, click “Slide Size” to resize your deck.

(Note: 900 x 6000 points in the maximum size in Keynote.)

Don’t agonize over getting the “perfect” height for your infographic, just give yourself enough space to work with. (You’ll learn how to crop and optimize your infographic in step #6.)

Action items for Step #2:

• Create a blank presentation in PowerPoint or Keynote.
• Resize the deck to an infographic-friendly size.

Step #3: Wireframe each section using shapes.

Both PowerPoint and Keynote have “Shape” tools which will allow you to create (you guessed it) shapes.

PowerPoint has more options for shapes than Keynote as you can see below:

In this step, our goal will be to use those shapes to create a “wireframe” and layout each section you’ll need for your infographic.

Here are the basic areas / sections that you’ll need to create:

• Header / Title Area
• Introduction
• Body / Main Argument
• Conclusion
• “Brought to you by…” Section
• Cited Resources

In most cases, each of these sections on every infographic will remain relatively the same. The only exception is the “Body / Main Argument” section, which will vary depending on your goal for the infographic.

For example, a comparison infographic would need to have a different “wireframe” and layout than a timeline infographic to effectively illustrate your point:

That’s why it’s smart (like with any creative project) to start with the end in mind. The creation process will be a lot easier if you can picture an outcome and work towards that. And I've seen too many infographics fail because they focus too much on fancy design instead of creating a solid wireframe and layout that compliments their topic.

Let’s be clear: The “design” is how your information looks, but the “layout” is how your information is organized and presented. The layout is far more important than any fancy design elements.

First, you’ll want to use rectangles and borders to define large areas of your infographic like in the example below:

Don’t worry about the colors just yet, we’ll get to those in the next step.

Next, using a combination of rectangles, squares, circles, triangles, and lines, create your subsections:

When creating your wireframe and layouts, there are two important design rules to consider:

1. You need to make sure there is enough white space so your infographic is easy to read.
2. You need to create hierarchy with your most important content and sections at the top.

If you’re still having an issue creating your layouts, add some wireframes to a blank presentation deck and use the “Shapes” tool to trace layouts until you get the hang of it. 

Last note: If you’re using Keynote, once you’re happy with your wireframe, I recommend that you “Lock” the shapes in place, that way when you’re adding in content later, you don’t accidentally screw up the layout. (You’ve been warned!)

Action items for Step #3:

• Find layout inspiration on Pinterest.
• Use the “Shapes” tool to create your wireframe.
• Create infographic sub-sections using shapes.

Step #4: Choose a color and typography palette.

Now with your snazzy new wireframe, you’re ready to choose colors and fonts.

Let’s talk colors first: A color palette is one of the most subtle, yet crucial aspects of any creative project. Your color palette will set the tone for your infographic and tie visual elements together.

When designing an infographic, I like to choose two different color sets. The first color set is the background(s), where I typically use soft, subtle colors so I can draw attention to important elements with brighter colors.

Here are a few examples:

Of course the flip side of that is to use bold background colors. But even with white text, it can make the graphic difficult to read. 

The second set of colors you choose will serve as your primary palette. These can be brighter and more eye-catching --“flat” colors are very popular for infographics.

Here are a few examples:

Keep in mind that it’s a smart idea to choose a palette that compliments your brand’s style. You can use a tool like Adobe Color to build a pallet around any color you’d like.

If you don’t want to build your own palette, I recommend that you check out Colour Lovers for endless inspiration created by other people:

Make sure that you’re not choosing too many colors as that can create “disconnect” between important areas of your infographic and overwhelm readers. If all else fails, using different shades of same color is always a safe bet.

Once you’ve got a nice color palette, it’s time to choose a font combination. The first thing you should do is avoid fancy or intricate fonts. (Even if it compliments your brand.)

Why? After you resize the infographic to a “web-friendly” size, those types of text can be extremely difficult to read. Instead, stick with easy-to-read fonts like Arial, Open Sans, Courier and Verdana.

When choosing a typography combination, you can combine two fonts, or use variations of the same font.

Check out the two examples below:

Make sure that you’re not using any fonts below 16 pts as it becomes extremely difficult to read once you resize your infographic in step #6. There is one exception when it comes to the fonts however: You don’t have to match your header’s title with the rest of your typography -- you can take a bit more creative liberty with that area of the infographic.

For example, check out these great headers that grab your attention immediately with eye-catching typography:

Want some incredible fonts for your title, sub-headers, and body text that you can download and use for free? Check out this article.

Action items for Step #4:

• Choose a background color scheme.
• Choose a primary color scheme.
• Select an easy-to-read typography combo.

Step #5: Add in your content, charts, and visuals.

Now it's time to take all the resources you collected in step #1 and extract the most focused, actionable content for your infographic.

Start by adding in your sub-headers and body text to the wireframe you created in step #3:

Make sure that your copy is short and to-the-point like the example above. You'll also need to include links to every resource you cited at the bottom of the infographic:

Now, it’s time to bring your words to life. To do this, use strong visual elements that instantly get your point across by “showing” not “telling” your readers:

You could make every single visual by yourself, or you could use my best-kept infographic design hack: Purchase community-made visual assets from online marketplaces. Websites like Graphic River, Creative Market, and Flat Icon sell visual assets made by professional designers that you can purchase and use in your projects.

For example, check out this sleek icon set you could purchase and use on any of your infographics:

There are dozens of other icons sets, illustrations, header images, and more that you can use to give your infographic a more professional look and feel immediately.

However, if you’re like me, once in awhile you want to make your own visuals from scratch. For example, one day I couldn’t find a decent “flat style” image for a fire pit, so I decided to use the “Shapes” tool in Keynote to “build” my own firepit. Check out how I made it below:

 

Now I realize that I might upset some people when I say this, but too bad: Data is not a requirement of a viral infographic. Of course, data makes it incredibly easy to prove your point by using indisputable numbers -- but I’ve also seen dozens of infographics go viral that don’t include a single graph or piece of data.

That being said, when you choose to include data in your infographic, there are some important things to consider.

The traditional way would be to use charts and graphs:

The second way to display your data is to use “data visualization":

For example, you could use a set of 10 “smartphone” icons where seven are colored and three are greyed out to represent the fact that 70% of Americans own a smartphone.

Or you could use a unique illustration like a ship race to visualize your data.

Just remember: Regardless of what type of infographic you’re creating, make sure that you’re using highly-engaging visuals and data visualizations to bring your content and data to life.

Action items for Step #5:

• Summarize and add in your copy.
• Add strong supporting visuals to “show” not “tell.”
• Use charts and visualizations to bring data to life.

Step #6: Export, optimize, and upload.

Once you’re happy with your infographic, it’s time to get it ready for the web. The first thing you need to do is export the “presentation deck” that you’re working on to a PDF.

In PowerPoint, just click on “File” then “Export” from your menu bar.

In Keynote, you do the same thing, except you choose “PDF…” from the menu bar.

Now that you have a PDF version of your infographic, you need to optimize the file size for fast loading online, without sacrificing quality or readability. Like I mentioned in step #2, there’s a good chance your infographic won’t fit perfectly into the resized PowerPoint or Keynote deck, so here’s a simple solution:

Open a photo editing tool (it doesn’t have to be PhotoShop) then crop and/or stitch together your PDF(s) to get the perfect height.

Next, resize your infographic to be between 700 and 900 pixels wide. Again, this will preserve the quality of the image while making the file’s size as small as possible.

Also, I recommend using a tool like Optimizilla to compress and optimize your infographic even further. Try to get the final file size to be less than 5 MB -- and be sure to save the photo file as a PNG or JPG.

The next thing you need to do is create a home for your infographic on your website. To do this, create a new page or blog post with a unique URL that you’ll upload and add the infographic image to.

This is important because when the infographic is shared around the internet, you want to make sure all the links point back to you so you get more traffic and shares.

Action items for Step #6:

• Export infographic to a PDF.
• Crop and/or “stitch” together your PDF(s).
• Resize to 700-900 pixels wide.
• Upload to a new website page or blog post.

Step #7: Go viral with strategic promotion.

Real talk: Infographics don't go viral by accident -- even if you’ve got the best infographic in the world.

Instead, strategically promoting your infographic by identifying the right people and the right websites can get your infographic in front of thousands of people fast.

But before we do that, you’ll want to make sure to optimize your infographic for search engines. SEO won’t necessarily help your infographic go viral, but it’s extremely beneficial because it will help increase your search engine rankings (which means more free traffic to your website).

Check out this infographic by Backlinko to help guide you while you’re optimizing your infographic(s) for search engines:

After that’s done, here are the next three things you should do:

#1: Find websites and blogs that share similar infographics.

For example, if I had just published an infographic on email marketing, I would go to Google at type in: “Email marketing infographic.” What you’re looking for are websites and blogs that have published similar infographics made by other people.

After you’ve got a decent list of websites who you think will be willing to share your infographic, it’s time for some email outreach. First, start by identifying the authors from each of the websites who published similar infographics. You can usually find the author’s name in the article’s byline:

Once you’ve got a list of authors, use a tool like Viola Norbert or ContentMarketer.io to find email addresses so you can start sending personal emails.

If you want to learn how the pros do email outreach, check out this article my friend Emil Shour did with Brian Dean at Backlinko. Part of that case study highlights the “Pre-Outreach” and “Content Roadshow” strategies he used to generate buzz for his content.

For example, check out Emil’s 2-step approach to email outreach. Instead of doing what most people do and asking for a backlink or share right away (1-step approach) here's what he did:

And because he wasn’t being pushy, he get’s responses like this from people asking to send his content over (2-step approach):

See the difference?

Now I’ll be the first to admit that email outreach is not the most exciting part about infographic marketing -- but it’s crucial if you want to get more eyeballs on your work.

Plus, the long-term benefits from the relationships you’ll build with influencers and bloggers will become invaluable down the road.

#2: Identify influencers who share similar infographics.

The best tool to find these influencers is BuzzSumo. Just type in a topic or copy/paste a specific link to pull up content that is sorted by number of social media shares.

For example, if I were doing an infographic on gardening, I’d type in “gardening infographic” into BuzzSumo. Next, I would go through the results one by one and click “View Sharers” on any infographics that are similar to mine:

This will give you a list of the people who have shared that infographic, which is helpful because you can sort by number of followers to identify influencers with a large number of followers who have shared infographics that are similar to yours.

Like in the last step, find their email address and start reaching out one-by-one. Aside from Viola Norbert and ContentMarketer.io, another clever way to find someone’s email address is to subscribe to their blog -- the welcome email and all future emails should come from an address that you can respond to.

As an alternative, if you can’t find someone’s email address, you can always use Twitter to reach out publically:

Sam Hurley has hundreds of thousands of followers but still responded and shared my content:

See how I used the same 2-step outreach approach like the email example from above?

1. Ask if they want to see it.
2. If they say yes, send the link.

Not being pushy is the key to getting responses and getting your content shared. You might also consider sending a friendly "thank you" note after an influencer shares your content to strengthen the relationship:

#3: Submit your infographic to infographic directories.

These directories are basically websites that curate infographics for other people to see. And they are the perfect place to get your infographic discovered by people who might want to share it on their website.

Trouble is, there are dozens of these directories out there, so instead of manually doing each one by yourself I recommend using Fivver to pay someone to do it for you. You don’t need to have someone submit your content to 50+ directories -- just stick with the people who only add it to the top 10-30 infographic directories.

Once you've added you infographic to the right directories, share it through all of your marketing channels:

• Share with your email lists
• Schedule multiple social media posts
• Paid ads / remarketing ads
• Add links to infographic on relevant website pages
• Share with industry partners
• Send to influencers/bloggers who’ve shared your content in the past
• Share with any brand or person you mentioned in your content

Action items for Step #7:

• Optimize your infographic for search engines.
• Share infographic with the right bloggers and influencers.
• Promote through all your digital marketing channels.

Wrapping Up

Alright, so I know this was a long one ... but be sure to bookmark this article so you can come back and refer to it at any time during the infographic creation and promotion process.

Need more help? I've put together a few bonuses to guide you along -- including a 20-step infographic checklist (we only covered seven here), as well as a handy teardown video. Click here to grab those.

What other infographic creation questions do you have? Share them in the comments below.

via HubSpot Marketing Blog http://bitly.com/2eNpnUe

From Hilarious to Heartbreaking: 10 of the Best Ads from October

A dancer sweeps gracefully through a deserted London cityscape. An dinosaur bursts through the ceiling of a night club. A particularly unintelligent looking cat contemplates jumping to a nearby perch.

What do all these different tableaus have in common? They're all featured in creative ads from the past month.

If you've been out of the loop, don't worry -- we've got you covered. Read on to see ten of the most creative, inspiring, and just plain weird ads from the last month.

1) Bose

This mesmerizing spot for Bose's new QuietComfort 35 headphones focuses on a lone dancer (Maëva Berthelot) entrancingly freestyling her way through completely empty London streets. The ad is set to "Alchemy" by London-based electro R&B artist TĀLĀ.

So how exactly were they able to film in some of London's busiest areas, completely devoid of people, cars, and other distractions? Grey London, the agency behind the ad, managed to block off pedestrians and traffic flow for a few minutes at a time -- just enough for them to film the takes they needed. They used an aerial helicopter for the sweeping images of the city, which was understandably subject to strict airspace regulations.

"This wasn't easy to produce," Grey London's executive creative director Dominic Goldman told AdWeek. "Most of this was captured in camera with minimal clean-up in post." The end result is a truly magnetic, gorgeous ad you'll definitely want to watch more than once.

2) Chatbooks

The agency behind the explosively viral Squatty Potty pooping unicorn ad has struck again. This time, the Harmon Brothers are lending their unique comedic perspective to Chatbooks, a subscription-based photo printing service that converts your smart phone snaps into photo albums.

The extended spot is intended to introduce consumers to Chatbooks for the first time, but the Harmon Brother's wanted to steer clear of a typical infomercial tone. Instead, the product is explained by a hilariously "real" mom (played by actress Lisa Valentine Clark), who juggles garbage disposal mishaps, potty training, and crossbow-wielding children with unflappable optimism.

3) Gusto

Being an HR manager at a small company is hard. Gusto, an HR software startup, wanted to give a shout out to all the HR managers who deftly manage 100+ responsibilities on a daily basis in their first ad campaign. They enlisted the help of Erich & Kallman, a new ad agency based in San Francisco, to make that vision come to life.

In a spot-on casting choice, actress and comedian Kristen Schaal was hired to portray the typical HR manager. Her quirky charm and self-possessed nature perfectly encapsulate the profession, and she hilariously swaps into different outfits and personas to accommodate various employee requests.

4) The Hospital for Sick Children

Canadian agency Cossette produced this captivating and emotionally powerful extended ad campaign for The Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto. Set to a pounding anthem ("Undeniable" by Donnie Daydream), the spot imagines sick children as fighters -- medieval warriors, comic book heroes, athletes -- combatting their illnesses with an unparalleled ferocity and unshakable spirit.

Part of a larger fundraising campaign for the Canadian hospital, the ad stars over 50 actual patients, along with their families, doctors, and nurses. It's an inspiring departure from traditional ads concerning childhood illness, and is perhaps even more forceful for it.

5) Canary

Imagine you leave the kids with a babysitter to go see a movie -- what could possibly go wrong? This ad for home security startup Canary imagines exactly that.

In the spot, one messy disaster strikes after another. The babysitter invites her sketchy boyfriend over for a make-out session, the girls run an overflowing bubble bath for the family cat, and one of the kids decides it's the perfect time to take the car out for an experimental spin -- which, as you might imagine, doesn't end too well for the garage door.

Developed by CP+B Miami, the ad gets a boost from director Peter Atencio's eye for perfect comedic timing (he directs Comedy Central's sketch show Key & Peele). It's a disastrously good time.

6) Dollar Shave Club

This spot for Dollar Shave Club presents more a palatable, normal-guy alternative to the hyper-masculine products that dominate the male grooming industry.

In the ad, a man shopping with his girlfriend picks out a shower gel called "Massive Hero," which promises "a fully jacked amino protein delivery system." With perfect timing, a body builder enters the same aisle -- the ideal consumer for the ultra-manly product. He picks up "Massive Hero" and inexplicably begins to flex and scream.

The hilarious, 30-second spot was created in-house at Dollar Shave Club by Alex Karpovsky (a writer/director/actor you might have seen on HBO's Girls) and designer/musician Teddy Blanks.

7) The Wildlife Conservation Film Festival

It's rare that an ad makes us stop for a minute in silent contemplation, but its impossible to come away from this short film for The Wildlife Conservation Film Festival without a lump in your throat.

Set to "I Dreamed a Dream" from Les Misérables, the film was created pro-bono by DDB New York as part of a larger campaign to raise awareness for wildlife conservation and global biodiversity protection. Zombie Studio produced the animation for the spot, which features a cast of uniquely expressive animals and sinister humans.

Warning: This will make you cry.

8) Pine Sol

In this new series of spots for Pine Sol cleaning products by experience design agency Critical Mass, the cleaning product company sticks to what they know: how to clean things, and nothing else.

Each of the campaign's 16-second ads highlight a brief moment of uncertainty: Will the cat jump on the table? Will the big date go well? Will Jared meet his 401k goals? The narrator makes it clear that Pine Sol definitely doesn't have the answers to these questions -- but they do know how to clean your stuff (hint: with Pine Sol).

9) Asus ZenFone 3

What happens when you ask ordinary people on the street to direct a commercial for your product? Well, it starts on a beach, and then things get pretty weird.

The folks at creative agency SuperHeroes enlisted the help of Matt Rubano and Betsy Kenney (members of Upright Citizens Brigade, the famous improv troupe) to ask random people on the street to come up with the plot of an ad for the new Asus ZenFone 3. The resulting spot includes dinosaurs, aliens, and an international car model named "Renaldo" saving the day at a night club.

10) Hornbach

If you've ever attempted a big do-it-yourself project, you know there are usually some big ups and downs. In this ad for German home improvement chain Hornbach, agency Heimat presents an unexpected metaphor for big DIY undertakings: rolling down a mountainside, naked.

The ad starts with a man beginning to dig a pond in his backyard, and we simultaneously follow his progression sliding through varied mountain terrains. At times, the grass is soft and inviting, and his progress is smooth -- but there are some definite bumps along the way.

Have you seen any great ads lately? Let us know in the comments.

via HubSpot Marketing Blog http://bitly.com/2eNs2NX