Advertising

Want Advertising Agency New Business Leads? The Ratti Report Delivers

Peter · February 26, 2021 · 2 Comments

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

Peter · February 14, 2021 · 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

Peter · February 5, 2021 · 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.

A List Of The Best Advertising Podcasts

Peter · January 28, 2021 · Leave a Comment

The average podcast listener listens to about 5 to 6 hours of podcasts per week. Since there are zillions of podcasts and episodes, one wonders how to get enough ear and brain time to find the most useful. To help y’all a bit, here’s a manageable, I stress manageable, list of the best advertising podcasts. I have to admit that this is a shifting list and, not every show from every advertising podcast is wonderful.

Help: If you think I should add to the list, please send me your besties = peter@peterlevitan.com

Also, stay tuned for my thinking on why an advertising agency should NOT podcast.

My list of the best advertising podcasts includes a good starter episode, a single episode that I think will be worth your time.

Advertising Magazine Podcasts

Campaign Podcast

Host: Omar Oakes (As usual, the British sound smart)

Welcome to the Campaign podcast, our weekly look at the biggest stories and trends in the world of advertising, marketing, media and technology, as well as our latest videos.

Good Start: Campaign’s most listened to podcasts of 2020

Adweek’s Yeah, That’s Probably An Ad

Multiple Hosts. My favorite is Doug Zanger.

Good Start: What’s next? Adweek’s 2021 Outlook for Media, Marketing and Tech

AdAge Ad Lib Podcast

Multiple Hosts

Good Start: The State Of The CMO

Australia / Asia / India

Not seeing much podcast activity at the advertising pub level in Australia / Asia and India. Am I missing something. Or, do have these guys figured out that ad podcasting is not worth the effort?

Digital Marketing Podcasts

Marketing School

Hosts: Neil Patel and Eric Sui

Good Start: Just start.

These smart guys do an episode a day. The shows last approximately 4 minutes. They bam into and out of single subjects including SEO, new stuff like Clubhouse, and email marketing. I wake up to them. I’d say that 1/2 of their podcasts teach me something digital.

Social Media Marketing

Host: Michael Stelzner of Social Media Examiner

Good Start: LinkedIn Ad Retargeting

Michael has been a primary guide in the digital marketing universe for eons. He interviews the best.

The Social Media Marketing podcast—a top marketing podcast—is a weekly 45-minute show hosted by our founder, Michael Seltzer. With millions of downloads each year, this show has been helping marketers for more than eight years.

Smart Marketing Guys

six pixels of separation

Host: Mitch Joel

Good Start: Ann Janzer on how to write your own non-fiction book.

2nd Good Start: The Relevance of Marketing Agencies With Peter Levitan [Read more…] about A List Of The Best Advertising Podcasts

LONDON Advertising Kicks Ass

Peter · September 26, 2020 · Leave a Comment

The LONDON Advertising Case Study

I’ve written a couple of blog posts about the LONDON Advertising self-run and crafted advertising campaign. I’ll put those links below.

My bottom line is that in the cutthroat world of advertising and digital agency business development, a critical goal should be to want to stand out. To be what I call Unignorable. These guys are Unignorable. And famous.

But, before looking at my prior posts, here is the video case study. Yes, that is me inside.

Strange, But True. An Advertising Agency Actually Likes Advertising

The LONDON program is an “interesting” story because, well, most advertising agencies do not advertise themselves. Why? Well, first many advertising and digital agencies do not have a well-crafted business development program (beyond WOM and referrals). Second, I’ll guess here, they might not actually think that “traditional” advertising works. Hey, I’m just guessing here.

Here is what I do know… advertising does work; even after 30 years of the growth of digital marketing, The good old fashioned TV commercial and out-of-home ad/poster/now digital still grab attention and sell. I can say this because I have done it all. And, I admit it. I started to invent digital advertising in 1995.

Earlier LONDON Advertising Blog Posts

Is Your Advertising Agency Famous And Unignorable

Does Your Advertising Agency Advertise Itself?