Agency of the Future

Is Advertising Art?

Peter · January 4, 2017 · 3 Comments

Is Advertising Art? Yes and No. Thoughts on 2017.

Here are some thoughts about the business of advertising that I will explore in 2017. A key one for me is thinking about the value-oriented question: “is advertising art” or is “advertising science” and how the recent move to data-love effects what you are selling to your agency’s current and future clients.

What I Think We I Will Be Talking About This Year

Is advertising art or science? We’ll it used to be very much art. Today, it has become, in my estimation, too scientific. I find that it is getting harder to find the big advertising ideas (name five from 2016). You know, the ideas that resonate, hit the emotions, get talked about. These big, brand-building, sales-generating “ideas” seem to be lost in a world of ever evolving tech / digital platforms and data mining.

Sure, this could simply be ‘good-old-days ad veteran speak’. But, no… While I grew up on mega-buck TV shoots, I also moved into the digital world in 1996 (founding NJ.com then ActiveBuddy) and ran a ‘digital’ agency in Oregon – so, I’m not too-stuck-on-good-old-days afterall. I just miss the time when people stood around the company water fountain and talked about advertising.

Today… we are simply not spending enough time thinking about the BIG ideas that drive humans to pay attention and to act (to give a shit) and then to want to do the action you, as a marketer, want them to do. We spend too much time talking about the technology and targeting that puts boring ad ideas in front of people. Boring.

Does the technology work? Facebook advertising fibbing / bullshit – again and again (the BIG 2016 story). And then there is ad fraud. Billions? Wasted? Clients have woken up. This should be interesting.

The business of advertising sucks (Part I). I talk with dozens of agencies. Most, even shops up to 200 people (I won’t even get into the networks) are barely making it. Why? Well, most do not really know what business they are in. They like making ‘ads’ and using the latest ad tech. But, they do not know how to make money. Most, the vast majority of agencies, do not even have a business plan that spells out the path to success. Please, start with a plan. And, given the pace of change, review the plan every year.

Ultimate bottomline: Most agencies do not have a marketing plan.

ADHD. In addition to not having a business plan, many agencies do not run a consitant marketing program. Many (most agencies) do not run their sales plan with any consistancy. They: Start – Stop – Start – Stop. They clearly have some form of attention deficit problem. Agency leaders have to treat business development like they treat an agency client. Do not take your eyes off the new business ball.

The business of advertising sucks (Part II.) I was blessed during the first half of my advertising career. We got paid well by the 15% commission system. This ended for me about 1989 when a new CMO at my Northwest Airlines client wanted to reduce that to 8%. Get this, this cut took us from $9 million in revenue and $3 million in profits to about $4.5 million in revenue. All of a sudden we were opporating at a loss – if we did not cut back on our service. We didn’t and it didn’t matter because, of course, the new CMO wanted to hand the account to another (read: his) new agency. OK, its 2016 and you guys are now chargeing by the hour. I witnessed this problem at my Oregon agency. The problem? Not so much that we got paid less. But… the problem of getting paid by labor hours for creative sevices. The value my agency provided clients far exceeded the hourly rates we could provide in an industry that had become based on low costs. There was always another agency that would work for a lower hourly rate.

Ready? Sell your agency? Sorry, most owners will never be able to sell their agency. Ever.

Why? Most agency owners are not building a business for sale. That means that they do not have a product or service that someone else will want and want to pay big bucks for. You can build a valuable agency. But, you have to make the goal of building value part of your plan. A part of your business plan. To get there, figure out what kind of agencies are getting bought (most sales are local) and have the type of agency that another wants to buy.

Process equals success. Having a clear, well-managed agency process is critical. Agencies have to find as many repeatable systems as possible. Otherwise, you are doomed to the world of over-work and low-margins. Read this: Advertising Agency Process and Profitability. It is long. It is based on how my agency built a system for profitability. An agency I was able to sell.

There is much more. But, I have to go now. Adios and —– Feilz Ano Nuevo!!!

OK, Back To The Art Of Advertising

One more thought. You are in the advertising industry. This means that you have to connect with hearts and minds in order to cause the action you seek. This means that a form of art is involved.

Sure you have to use advertising technology to get the word out (that’s all that overwhelming stuff in the Lumascape at the left). But, you will not get the results you want until you spend some time making advertising art that connects, inspires and informs.

Soooooo, as a New Year’s gift, I give you a very brief definition of art. Think of this Richard Serra video the next time you crawl into the ad tech wormhole. Who is Richard Serra? From Gagosian, his dealer…

“Richard Serra is one of the most significant artists of his generation. He has produced large-scale, site-specific sculptures for architectural, urban, and landscape settings spanning the globe, from Iceland to New Zealand.”

Is Your Advertising Agency Ignoring Chatbots?

Peter · November 23, 2016 · Leave a Comment

Is Your Advertising Agency Watching The Chatbot Space?

I’ve written about the potential of chatbots as an advertising agency revenue and new business source. Read about it here on HubSpot and here on my blog.

Facebook + Microsoft + Google = Pay Attention

If you have any reason to think that chatbots are NOT going to be a major part of the digital world & your marketing, listen to the leaders of Facebook, Microsoft and Google on what they are up to.

Chatbots and Your Advertising Agency

Peter · November 18, 2016 · 1 Comment

Chatbots, Bots, Guest Posting and Your Advertising Agency

Check out my article Why Bots Are the Next Big Frontier for Agencies that was posted this morning on HubSpot’s marketing blog. The article discusses my views on the power of Chatbots, the looming opportunity for advertising agencies to get on this bandwagon and my personal experience running ActiveBuddy, an early Chatbot company.

3 Takeaways

My article offers three big takeaways (I mean immediately actionable takeaways) for your ad agency and its new business program:

Something new for you to talk about. Pay attention to AI and Chatbots. Savvy advertising agencies will jump on this bandwagon. It is real. Why? People like to talk to smart, friendly, uber programmed computers rather than tap out on the keyboard and phone. Oh, and Facebook loves chatbots.
Your skill. Advertising agencies are good at writing or should be. Creating smart Chatbots is all about understanding human communications and writing scripts that recognize how interpersonal communications work. This is what a savvy advertising agency is good at. That savvy agency is also good at building brand to consumer conversations. Believe me, you’ve spent almost 10 years building static apps. Chatbots will unleash your inner conversational bot expertise. This is already in-house.
Reach. I’m sure that you love your agency blog. But, guest posting on a mega website like HubSpot will drive way more incremental reach for your thought leadership, ideas and brand awareness. Why? Alexa tells me that HubSpot is the 529th highest ranked website. Get this, Ogilvy’s website is ranked at only 41,659 — after zillions of years of being in the ad business. Even a smart one at Ogilvy should think about guest posting if she’d like to reach more folks.

On the subject of reach… after only a couple of hours, my post was shared lots. See….

Last point. Here is the video ActiveBuddy made 14 years ago to launch our company. You’ll see that I thought bots were a big fucking idea then. I still do.

Is Your Ad Agency Special?

Peter · October 31, 2016 · Leave a Comment

The “Special” Ad Agency Wins

I’ve written about the need for creating ad agency differentiation if an agency wants to excite and win new clients…

(I know, I know, you know that I know that you know how important having an agency positioning that stands out is.)

But, most agencies do not seek a high degree of differentiation. They are not bold. Full stop. They are willing to be not different.

There are many reasons for this. One of the most expressed fears is that (and I know that this is going to sound insane)… is that agencies do not want to sound too different for fear of losing the opportunity to pitch LOTS of clients. The belief is that being a ‘general’ agency, even a general digital or PR agency, will beget more opportunities to pitch for a broad range of clients. These agencies are playing a losing numbers game. Having a clear, yes narrower, refined, brand positioning will win in the end.

Give clients an opportunity to view your agency as being special and unmistakenly desirable. Think different and look different.

My Unignorable Agency Presentation – 9 Paths To Special

I was recently asked by a large agency network to give a brief presentation on what are key ways to differentiate an agency. I came up with nine paths to being Unignorable: Positioning; Attitude; Ego Mania; Specialization; AHA!; Carpe Diem; Humor; Awards; Your Website.

Each one of these paths represents an opportunity to help your agency stand out from the other 3,999 agencies seeking the clients you deserve and… Be Different.

Hope yo enjoy the presentation and take away a couple of paths to specialness.

Gary Vaynerchuck And His ANA Advertising Rant

Peter · October 22, 2016 · Leave a Comment

Gary Vaynerchuck Tells It Like It Is

I have written about Gary Vaynerchuck and his take on advertising and the industry twice before. Both positive and negative.

Gary Vaynerchuck Is Full Of Shit

Gary Vaynerchuck: Old School Advertising Agency CEO

Today, I’d like to respond to his ‘rant’ (according to Advertising Age) on the advertising industry that he delivered at the Association of National Advertisers Masters of Marketing conference.

Gary’s comments and my perspective follow. Before you start, I’d like to say again that I admire Gary and his brilliant job of building Vayner Media, one of the fastest growing agencies in the business. His built-for-today agency is an example of how to do it right that many agency CEO’s should study.

The Gary Vaynerchuck Annual Rant

On improving creative: “Everyone likes to talk about the media inefficiencies and transparencies, but what about the creative? We have to understand our brands mean different things to different people and the attention of the consumer is shifting at scale. Creative gets elevated when we accept an ecosystem that gives us more creative at bats.”

My Take… Creative at bats. Hmm. OK, I get it. Spread your creativity around the world of media platforms. But, a big but, creativity is not about volume. It is about ideas that arrest and tell brand stories and tidbits that capture attention and excite. Big compelling ideas that drive interest and, yes folks, sell something. Go here to read about the history of the early days of Volkswagen advertising – The best Advertising Ever. It will prove my point.

On the potency of the Super Bowl: “When I buy my first brand, the first thing I’m going to do is run multiple Super Bowl ads,” he said. “The No. 1 underpriced value of attention is the Super Bowl. Every single person watches it, but the problem with the current execution of the Super Bowl is the creative has so much vested interest in being a showcase for agencies … we’re not making the kind of work that takes advantage.”

Another OK. Please, we all get that agencies try to flex their creative muscle when they get a chance to create advertising for the Super Bowl. Guess what, some not so great Executive Creative Directors think first about their reel. Do we really need to here again? OK again… yes, there are lame agencies (occasionally abetted by immature Internet brands) that do this. But, I know that as clients have gotten more focused on selling, the run of silly TV commercials has diminished.

OK again… yes, there are lame agencies (occasionally abetted by immature Internet brands and super nervous marketing directors who might also be building their reels) that do this. But, I know that as clients have gotten more focused on selling, the run of silly Super Bowl TV commercials has diminished.

On measuring marketing: “You’re scoring the wrong shit,” he said. “There’s a new world and attention is in different places. I could care less if Facebook, Instagram or Snapchat exist tomorrow — I just care about where your attention is.”

HUH? Why is Gary talking down to experienced agency leaders and how they measure effectiveness? Oh, this speech is all about selling his agency’s expertise. Bravo to Gary’s salesmanship.

On targeting your audience: “If you are running [TV] commercials for a brand that targets consumers 22 and under, you’re a fuckface.”

Well, why rule out TV? The under 22-year-old crowd does, in fact, watch TV. Not all of it and not clearly (of course, we all know this right?) as much as their dads. But they watch it. Is Gary suggesting that brands should avoid TV – ever? Never consider it a part of the traditional – social – video – outdoor (still going strong) media mix? Not recognize that a bunch of TV is not viewed on the old-fashioned TV set but on the phone? Really, is he saying this? Or just saying that advertisers should talk to him about how fucked up the big agencies are? Again. Remember, Gary is on a sales call to the ANA and Advertising Age has graciously abetted his cause.

On final takeaways: “You’re going to die,” Mr. Vaynerchuk said. “It’s an amazing time to be in this industry if you’re on the offense, it’s the worst time if you’re on the defense and 95% of you are on the defense.”

Duh! This sounds like career advice you give to your 18-about-to-go to college neighbor.