Peter Levitan & Co.

The New Business of Advertising

Agency of the Future

Portland Tech Companies On YouTube

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pieportlandlogoDid you miss the 2014 PIE (Portland Incubator Experiment) 2014 Demo Day?

Well, here are the videos from the class of 2014’s brand new tech companies. Put your agency hat on and think through how your ‘ad agency’ could play a role in your city’s start-up community. Why? Here are 5 reasons:

  1. You need to be connected to what your neighborhood tech entrepreneurs are up to.
  2. You will be stimulated by their thinking.
  3. You could support / fund one or more.
  4. You will make friends in the developer community.
  5. You will learn how to build your very own “product’ so you won’t have to rely on your hourly rates to make a living …. forever.

You can see some of Portland’s leading “tech stars” and Wieden+Kennedy’s digital leader Renny Gleeson on how advertising agencies can participate in the world of start-ups. On this video right here.

What is PIE? FYI, Wieden+Kennedy plays a big role.

In PIE there are no scripts. We enable creative business-building.

Talented startups come to PIE to learn, grow, and quickly conquer obstacles. We pair them with the mentors they need, when they need them, to solve their unique business challenges.

Sound interesting? We’d love to see you apply during the next application period.

What the hell does an ad agency know about startups?

Well, we’ve been doing this awhile. Wieden+Kennedy helps PIE startups shape their brands and tell their stories. And sometimes W+K partners with startups to tell brand stories in new ways.

 

 

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How To Start A Creative Advertising Agency

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20761-1b14286a10dad babyI am occasionally asked…. “How do I start a great advertising / design / digital agency?”

Here are some videos that help to answer this question.  There are more out there but these three videos should get you on your way.

Thanks to Source and Mirren.

The first is from London’s Steve Harvey. Here is how he talks about himself (hmm, Agency of the Decade, not too shabby):

Steve Henry was Founder / Creative Director of Howell Henry Chaldecott Lury, the agency voted Campaign’s Agency of the Year three times and Campaign’s Agency of the Decade in 2000.

 

Next, we’ve got Sir John Hegerty. Shabby? Not.

John Hegarty is one of the world’s most awarded and respected admen. Over six decades he has been at the forefront of the creative advertising industry from the early days of Saatchi and Saatchi to Bartle Bogle Hegarty, the global company he runs today.

In 1982 he founded Bartle Bogle Hegarty with partners John Bartle and Nigel Bogle. The agency swiftly became one of the most talked about and awarded advertising agencies in the world. BBH has won every Agency of the Year accolade and every creative award possible and has been at the forefront of the industry for twenty nine years.

 

Finally, here is Chuck Porter. I saw him speak at Advertising Week last week (along with John Hegerty) and he is rather, um, on it.

  Chuck Porter is an American advertising executive, marketer and author. He is co-founder and chairman of the advertising agency Crispin Porter + Bogusky and chief strategist for its holding company, MDC Partners.

 

My numero uno take on starting an agency?

Be distinctive as illustrated by a cartoon from my book, The Levitan Pitch. It demonstrates a key issue facing new and used agencies…. Sameness.

don't be distinctive mistake copy jpeg

How To Run A Profitable Advertising Agency (2 of 2)

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Here is Part Two of my blog post on how to run a profitable advertising agency.

monopoly-manYou might want to start at Part One. Part One also tells you, based on my own personal perspective of myself, why you might want to believe most, if not all, of what I am about to tell you.

13. Grow your digital assets faster. Bring on more technologists to leapfrog even early-adopter digital agencies. A lot of agencies are now behind simply because they didn’t start hiring more geeks sooner.

14. Pick a growth area. It’s not too late to become the smartest video or mobile agency (no one is yet.) Not even the big boys have mobile figured out. However, it may be too late to be known as the best “social media agency” given the sea of social experts. One more      digital point, and I know that you know this — digital agencies have a higher multiple than full-service agencies. If you want to sell in the next three years, you best add valuable digital skill-sets.

15. Provide exceptional client service. All AE’s must know how to think like a client in order to anticipate client needs and address any potential issues before they materialize and metastasize. Consider sending your AE’s to an AE class. The worst call I could ever imagine is a client telling me that our account service sucked. It’s just too easy to fix. Fixing creativity is much harder.

16. Create an agency work process that is dedicated to profitability. Then stick with it. The ever-elastic creative process must be tamed. If you need a work process template ask me and I’ll shoot you one. [Read more…] about How To Run A Profitable Advertising Agency (2 of 2)

How To Run A Profitable Advertising Agency (1 of 2)

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How To Run A Profitable Advertising Agency?

Don’t Take My Word For It, Yet…

monopoly-manI’ve been working as a senior executive and owner in the advertising, digital and Internet startup worlds since the golden 1980’s. My global and regional clients and new business wins include General Mills, Harrah’s, J&J, Intel, Microsoft, Nabisco, Northwest Airlines and Nike. And, many smaller regional clients you might never have heard of unless you are on the west coast.

Over the years, I’ve made hundreds of business decisions. Some were brilliant and some were ‘learning experiences’. I’ve decided to share my top 25 business-building lessons with you. No, I am not so crazy to think that these will instantly make your agency the next 72andSunny. But, I do know that most of these lessons represent best practices that, if followed, can help make you be more successful.

The path that got me here included sixteen years at Saatchi & Saatchi Advertising Worldwide as Business Development Director North America, General Manager Minneapolis, European Director in London and Management Director in New York. After I discovered the Internet browser in 1994, I left advertising for seven years to be CEO and founder of two Internet publishing and technology startups. One was one of the first major online newspapers. The other company created technology that allowed people to have meaningful conversations with a computer – Microsoft bought the technology in 2005. If you were online in the early 2000’s you might have talked with our SmarterChild bot on instant messaging platforms. Over 20 million people did.

After my digital sojourn, I moved from New York to Oregon in 2002 to buy the advertising agency RalstonGroup. In the ten years that I ran the agency, we bought the sports marketing agency Citrus, took their name and added clients like Dr. Martens, Legalzoom, Montana Lottery, Nike’s AOR college and Major League Baseball accounts and the U.N.

I understand the advertising industry from the perspective of huge to small agencies and have sat on the client side of the table.

By the way, I now run an agency consultation business that specializes in business development. I help agencies find their positioning sweet spot and build action-oriented business development plans. I just published my second book, The Levitan Pitch. Buy This Book. Win More Pitches. This book is a very detailed how-to about how to manage and create business-winning new business pitches.

My experience as a consultant and the opportunity to look under the hood of many agencies has confirmed that the following ideas can help add value to most, if not all, agencies.

I hope that by now you think that I must know what I am talking about. If so, here you go…

Here are the first 12 of my 25 key lessons I’ve learned over the years. Part two is up tomorrow.

[Read more…] about How To Run A Profitable Advertising Agency (1 of 2)