Advertising

Is Mexico Dangerous

June 29, 2021 By Peter Leave a Comment

Is Mexico Dangerous? Let’s Let Advertising Help Answer.

There is a video inside an AdWeek article I want you to watch. Do it. It is about powerful advertising that can make an idiot look like a real idiot.

But, first this.

One of the smarter questions I get from Americans asking about my life in San Miguel de Allende Mexico is – “is Mexico dangerous?” Note, it very safe for millions of Mexicans and gringos – despite the drone of bad USA news. The bad stuff is the cartel people killing each other. Think mafia wars.

I also get this question, “how is the beach in Mexico City”. But I’ll save that brilliant question for another day.

Bottom line: Is living in Mexico dangerous? No. Ain’t Texas.

I sure feel safer here than in Texas where it is mucho easier to walk around with a loaded handgun on your hip (in a supermarket or your 7-11) than it is to get a driver’s license.

Imagine buying diapers with your toddler when the low IQ dude next to you is packing a 30-round Kel-Tec. But, I’ll save discussing that insanity for another day.

OK, the advertising video.

From AdWeek Magazine…

On a sunny day in early June, David Keene, board member and former president of the National Rifle Association, thinks he is delivering a graduation speech to a high school in Las Vegas. Dressed in a black cap and gown with a bright yellow sash, he stands at a podium and tells the students of John Madison Academy, “Follow your dream and make it a reality.”

Before him stretches a sea of empty white chairs, hiding a chilling truth behind this ceremony. For while Keene believes he is rehearsing for a commencement speech, in reality John Madison Academy is not a real school, and those empty chairs will never be filled.

Each of the 3,044 seats represents a student who should have graduated in 2021–if they hadn’t been killed by gun violence.

The Best Advertising Agency Creative Brief

June 12, 2021 By Peter Leave a Comment

The Best Advertising Agency Creative Brief – I Think (Well, I Know)

I started my advertising agency career at New York’s Dancer Fitzgerald Sample, one of the original Mad Men agencies. Other than having an absurdly rich AOR client list (Toyota, P&G, General Mills, Nabisco, Wrangler, HP, and on) we were known for our ‘best’ advertising agency Creative Brief. This brief worked so well that it was adopted by the 4A’s as the gold standard.

That was then. Does this agency Creative Brief still work to guide brilliant advertising? I think so.

The Best Advertising Agency Creative Brief For A B2B Podcast

I applied the Creative Brief format to one way I think that an advertising agency or any B2B marketing org could build and run a standout podcast. By the way, think that it is easy to stand out in the world of podcasts? Check out these numbers from PodcastInsights.

Also, a common question is “how many podcasts are there?” and most of the data out there is outdated, but we have an accurate method for determining the number of shows – and it’s currently over 2,000,000.

There are also over 48 million episodes as of April 2021.

I wrote this Creative brief for one of my agency clients a few months ago. Therefore, it might seem a bit outdated, or better yet, prescient. Go ahead and use the idea. The idea will work for many industries.

I highlighted the core CB sections / questions in red.

A Sample Podcast Creative Brief

CREATIVE BRIEF: Giant Gorilla Agency Product/Service: The Marketing Journey Podcast

January _1_2021

Background

London’s Giant Gorilla agency specializes in hospitality industry marketing.

It has been successful in building a large client base across a range of industry subcategories. Giant Gorilla is known for its strategic approach, data expertise, high ROI programs, and for its business insights and social media channels.

It is time to move this energy into podcasting.

What is the objective of the project?

Create and produce a daily, unignorable podcast for the hospitality industry.

The Marketing School podcast from Neil Patel and Eric Siu, is an example of a daily listen. Each show averages 5 minutes and includes a commercial.

Who are we talking to?

Listenership will include food and beverages, lodging and recreation industry corporate marketers, business owners, and related press.

What do they currently think?

The hospitality industry took a major hit in 2020. We expect a slow but steady revival in 2021. Current trends point to growing domestic travel and then a resumption of international air travel by the third quarter of 2021.

The industry is ripe for the consumption of marketing information related to category growth.

What do we want them to think and what action do we want them to take?

We want the industry to view Giant Gorilla as the leading advertising and digital marketing voice and marketing communications agency in the hospitality industry. The essence of hospitality has changed, and Giant Gorilla is uniquely positioned to be a leading voice in industry marketing.

What is the message that will move this target audience to action?

Giant Gorilla’s The Marketing Journey hospitality podcast delivers business-building information, insights, and brief interviews – every day.

“Give us eight minutes every morning and we will help you accelerate your growth.”

Program Elements – The Show

The five-minute The Marketing Journey Show will be published every weekday at 8 AM EST.

Giant Gorilla’s COO Nancy Greene and Creative Director Jill Davis will host The Marketing Journey. Nancy will use her past broadcast experience to lead the discussions. Friendly, intelligent banter will rule.

From time to time, the show will bring in Giant Gorilla’s leading thinkers (like CTO Sandy Goddof on TikTok and travel), current clients and guests from the industry.

For production efficiency will gang record five shows every Tuesday afternoon unless there is late-breaking industry news.

The production team is TBD.

What are the support points?

Timely topics will include news about the business of hospitality: industry trends, Covid related issues, what’s hot in marketing, new business models, and a range of discussions on the constant evolution of hospitality marketing, with a concentration on digital marketing.

Great Guests = Traction & Unignorability.

We have already booked interviews with the CMO of InterContinental Hotels; Shake Shack owner Danny Meyer, a very successful Airbnb host, and the CTO of Hotels.com.

What is the brand’s character?

The Marketing Journey is super smart, knowledgeable, and curious – all with a touch of humor.

What is mandatory?

Each show will be broadcast on all of the major podcast platforms and will be supported by individual show landing pages.

Each show will promote Giant Gorilla’s hospitality industry expertise. See The Marketing Journey marketing plan for detailed information.

Oh, Oh… Does Your Agency Need An Action Plan To Get To Being UNIGNORABLE?

Give me a shout to get you there faster. Bottom line? I am like every other advertising agency business development consultant. OK, not. Name one that ran biz dev at Saatchi, owned his own agency, and started two Internet companies? I am more strategic, smarter, and more action-oriented. Also, funnier.

Want Advertising Agency New Business Leads? The Ratti Report Delivers

February 26, 2021 By Peter Leave a Comment

Steve Ratti And The Ratti Report – Advertising Agency New Business Leads Served Up Daily…

As Steve Ratti, the Managing Editor of The Ratti Report says:

“Ratti Report is the leading digital newspaper for ad agencies aggressively seeking pitchable new business intel. Celebrating 10 years in publication, we continue to track down great clients for our great agency membership.”

The bottom line for The Ratti Report is that it delivers 1,000 or so actionable advertising agency new business leads per year – a few new ones each day. These are go-for-it leads for the advertising agency universe. Yes, not all leads will be perfect for your agency. But, hey, some will be if you are good at sales.

Check out my conversation with Mr. Ratti on how he does his magic, how advertising

Steve Ratti on LinkedIn.

The Ratti Report.

YO – Hypnotism coming: Remember to subscribe to Advertising Stories. Remember to subscribe to Advertising Stories.

Remember… so you will hear my whole series on virtual pitching.

A nice thing for me… Feedspot has recognized Advertising Stories as being a top 15 advertising podcast.

Advertising Agency Podcast Strategy That Cannot Be Ignored

February 14, 2021 By Peter Leave a Comment

You Will Need An Unignorable Advertising Agency Podcast Strategy

I recently wrote a white paper on how to create a successful advertising agency podcast. “9 Unignorable Reasons Why Your Advertising Agency Should Not Podcast” covers learning from my 15-year podcast marketing journey and provides the pros and cons of podcasting. Even better, the doc is designed to guide you through an advertising agency podcast strategy that will deliver a must-listen-to podcast show. Here is how I start the 3,000-word white paper:

What’s Up With Podcasting?

I recorded my first podcast in 2007 when I owned the Portland advertising agency Citrus. After recording 18 shows, I gave up.

Why did I give up? It was just too early in the podcasting wilderness to put the time and effort into the show. I had great conversations with an editor of ADWEEK Magazine about the future of digital marketing and the growing power of Google as an ad platform (she was right); a business development guru that grew Saatchi & Saatchi Advertising Worldwide, and two with the father of podcasting itself. You can hear a couple of those early interviews in my current podcast series “Advertising Stories”.

I recently gave up again.

I just ended my latest podcasting series. Why? Last June I had a plan to test a series of podcasts to see if this audio platform, which has grown exponentially since 2007, could drive my awareness and leads to my advertising agency business development consultancy. My plan was to record 40 shows between May and December 2020. These are really good interviews with cool, smart advertising people from New York to New Delhi… and I am a good interviewer. But, despite doing lots of things right, I have seen no appreciable business gain from all of this work. Some pain, no gain.

Which brings me to this instructive missive.

OK, that was the intro. You can get the white paper by subscribing to my occasional email newsletter (see the links on this page) or by contacting me at peter@peterlevitan.com

A Winning Advertising Agency Podcast Strategy – How To Be Unignorable

In the last section of my advertising agency podcast recommendations doc, after my take on some “how-tos”, I discuss how to create a podcast that is well-targeted and will be hard to ignore. I stress hard to ignore (by your cherished target market) because the list below covers the things that you will undoubtedly compete with for your future client’s work-life attention and time:

The client’s actual 8 to 7 management and marketing job.
72 daily emails.
All the incoming biz dev messaging coming in from your advertising agency competitors that are vying for the same client’s attention.
Facebook.
LinkedIn.
Instagram.
YouTube.
TikTok.
SMS text messages from Gary Vaynerchuk.
Clubhouse. Yikes, now Clubhouse.
And, a world of a zillion general podcasts from small players like The New York Times, Campaign Magazine, and NPR. Even worse, you will not be alone in the growing world of 30 to 60-minute marketing and advertising agency podcasts.

How To Get Loved? Here Is A Sample Advertising Agency Podcast Creative Brief

The Best Super Bowl Commercial Ever

February 5, 2021 By Peter 3 Comments

The Best Super Bowl Commercial – According To Mom

Back in the late 1980s, I ran the $60 million Northwest Airlines account at Saatchi & Saatchi Advertising Worldwide. Northwest was a national and regional airline advertiser in the days when airlines advertised – alot. The airline competed with big-budget United, American, and a range of international carriers. All these airlines produced and ran expensive TV commercials. But, this Northwest TV spot was the best Super Bowl commercial – ever.

The commercial below was a part of the EFFIE and multiple creative award-winning “Asia Series”. The campaign included TV, radio, print, and out-of-home executions. The objective of the campaign was to grow Northwest’s transpacific business. At that time, Northwest was the leading airline flying to Asia and needed to maintain its leadership business.

The Asia Series was notable for two reasons.

The campaign utilized an early form of pre-internet content marketing. In addition to traditional advertising, we created long-form radio content, print, and even the use of telephones (800 and 900 numbers) all designed to provide detailed information on how to conduct business in emerging Asian markets. We viewed our business and cultural guidance as ‘information as a service’. Common today but not back in the 1980s.

We ran our TV advertising nationally and regionally. The Asia Series was supported by a multiple-execution TV campaign created by our ECD Pat Peduto and CW Paige. St. John, which was shot over six weeks in Thailand, Hong Kong, Seoul, and Tokyo. We ran a couple of these on the Super Bowl in select markets including New York, L.A., and Chicago. The spot below is without question the best Super Bowl commercial ever. Why, well, it’s a cool spot. But, if you go to the 13-second mark, right after the glowing elephants, you can see me crossing a Thai road. Yes, this was my rather brief turn as a businessman star in the best Super Bowl commercial – ever.

Well, at least it was according to my mom.