Marketing

Is Your Advertising Agency Famous And Unignorable

August 24, 2020 By Peter Leave a Comment

My friend Michael Moszynski, Founder and CEO of London’s global advertising agency LONDON Advertising, recently sent me an agency Press Release with the headline: “LONDON Advertising ad campaign sees its awareness surge an impressive 50% and overtake Adam & Eve in Populus poll.” I’d say that LONDON Advertising is able to say “yes” to the question… “Is Your Advertising Agency Famous And Unignorable.’

LONDON Advertising got to fame and unignorability by running a real broad awareness advertising campaign for the agency (and working on being famous for years). Yes, you heard me right. They actually used real (LOL) advertising to up their image and awareness in the UK. I’ve written about this campaign here: Does Your Advertising Agency Advertise Itself?

Help You Getting Your Advertising Agency Famous And Unignorable

#1. How did LONDON do it? Read their PR and think about your agency

Here is a quote from the press release (gotta love that England still has Lords)…

In a Populus poll of awareness of UK ad agencies among over 2,000 members of the public, LONDON Advertising demonstrated the power of its ad TV and Outdoor campaign to promote its own brand with an outstanding set of results.

Lord Cooper, Founding Partner of Populus, said:

“Amongst the public, brand awareness of LONDON Advertising rose by an impressive 50% in just a month. LONDON Advertising is now 6 times more well-known than highly established agencies like VCCP. The increase in awareness of LONDON Advertising was the only statistically significant change in the month between our two polls, so their campaign clearly cut through. Among the critical sub-group of consumer opinion influencers, LONDON Advertising now has the highest awareness of any of the agencies covered in the poll, at 27% – its campaign taking it past Adam &Eve.”

Here is the press release sweetly shouting about LONDON. Results of LONDON Advertising advertising campaign

#2. How do y’all get to famous?

Quick story. A while ago I moved to London to work at the original Saatchi & Saatchi Advertising Worldwide on Charlotte Street. I quickly found out how famous Saatchi was when I got in a cab and told the driver the address. He said, “Oh, you are going to Saatchis.” From then on I’d just say that I was going to Saatchi. If you said your agency name to an Uber driver (let’s pretend she does not have the app for a second) would she know YOUR address?

OK. How to get to famous? Three “simple” but, ya know, like, important things.

Make being famous and unignorable an objective. A second on the idea of being unignorable… Imagine the alternative?
Is your advertising, digital, social, PR or whatever agency marketing designed to be famous and unignorable?
Show the world that you are (!) unignorable. Shout it. This is precisely how Maurice and Charles Saatchi did it. They made damn sure that the world thought that Saatchi & Saatchi was famous. This was an objective. This was LONDON’s freakin objective, too.

Oh, while you are at it, how about your personal brand? Are you famous? Did you see the video on my Home Page? For some of you… yes, I ripped off the name association idea from the great conceptual artist Chris Burden. Steal like an artist.

Need more fame???? Contact me.

Free Ten Point Advertising Agency Assessment

August 20, 2020 By Peter Leave a Comment

Here Is Freebie Just For You: My Ten Point Advertising Agency Assessment

How is your advertising, digital, social media, PR agency doing? When I owned my Portland advertising & digital agency it was hard for me to tell how I stacked up vs. other agencies. As my friend Jon of Portland’s The Good, a conversion rate optimization consultancy, said on our recent podcast interview,

“It is hard to read the label from inside the jar.”

So, to help you, I am offering, for a limited time (true) a ten point advertising agency assessment. FYI, when I owned my own agency, I took all of the advice I could get. Even when I ran business development at Saatchi & Saatchi, I wanted third-party opinions and advice.

So, Why Offer An Advertising Agency Assessment – For Free?

If you work at an agency or in marketing, you know that making a high-value offer is usually a productive lead generation marketing tool. As part of my own marketing (side note, I practice what I preach) I am running a google PPC campaign that targets advertising agency leadership. Here is my ad agency leader offer landing page (it should at least be instructive as a look as my marketing). As I have often pointed out… this is a Corleone offer. It should not be refused. If you run an agency, go for it.

The offer is driving some incoming interest for my services at a time that many advertising agencies should be reevaluating their agency business and marketing plans. Right?

Levitan’s Ten Point Advertising Agency Assessment & Check-Up

This advertising agency assessment is based on my forever years of experience running major accounts and business development at Saatchi & Saatchi; CEO of two Internet start-ups; my own advertising agency and this business development consultancy. I have worked with dozens of agencies. I have seen what they look like from outside the jar.

Here are the ten points I will assess just for you:

Your business plan: How hard do you look at and possibly adjust your business plan? How will you generate maximum revenues and profits in our strange 2020? Do you make adjustments? Do you understand your Total Addressable Market (TAM)?
Your advertising agency positioning: This is a tough and hard look at your primary brand proposition. You can read about my general perspective on the value of a kick-ass positioning on this website.
Your 8-second website: This is probably one of the first ways that anyone sees your agency. How do your ranks vs. your competition? What do you say that will get me to pay attention in my 8-second look-see. In many cases, you only have around eight seconds to make me look at you and stick around vs. the other 3,999 advertising, digital, etc. agency websites that are screaming for attention. Here is my blog post about the Best Advertising Agency Websites.
Your business development plan and activity: How have you managed your plan over the past year? My whole blog of close to 800 blog posts discusses how you should market your agency.
Your outbound, account-based marketing: I’ll just ask you… you do this right? If, so, how?
Your social media activity and authority: Are you an active blogger, thought leader, podcaster? How do you look on LinkedIn; Twitter; YouTube; Instagram; and ae you a category leader? What do your stats tell you?
Your client list: How does your client list look to an outsider? Do one or two clients account for too high a percentage of your revenues? Do you know how to position your client list for business development?
Your intellectual property: Do you have any IP? Something that will differentiate and add sustainable value to your agency? You can do this. I know how to make this happen – efficiently.
Your ‘findable’ quotient: Can I find your advertising agency if I do a search for you? You should be everywhere I might search for you (your competition will probably be there)Yes, I have written about this.
Your creative vibe: Yes, clients have brought their marketing inhouse. It is easy. For example, just get some social media type folks to do the work. But, but, most inhouse client resources suck at being creative thinkers and doers. How does your creativity stack up and how do you prove it?

That’s It, Folks

If you need my educated third-party, very honest, no bull shit assessment… go for it. This is a limited time offer. Give me a shout.

OK, One More. Have you listened to the smart and entertaining Advertising Stories podcast?

Instant Social Media Content For Your Brand And Advertising Agency

June 16, 2020 By Peter Leave a Comment

I’ve updated this blog post about, well, I’ll repeat the title for you, and especially Google. Instant Social Media Content For Your Brand And Advertising Agency.

OK, I admit it, there is no totally instant social media content. But, there is fast. In fact, fast and good. In fact, there really is fast + good + cheap. Which, as you might suspect, will make a brand and any advertising agency very happy.

I have used a few different methods to accelerate the generation of my more than 700 blog posts. Try a few of these on for size.

TikTok

I am going to write about TikTok in detail in the very near future. TikTok which, given its size and growth, is the most underutilized advertising agency business development social media platform. Hmmm. Why?

Here is what I think. Some possible agency excuses not to use TikTok…

TikTok is too young.
Too international.
Too new. As in, why should I bother? Um, remember when you didn’t use Instagram?
None of my clients have asked about it.
Worse… I do not have a TikTok account.

Interviews

Interviewing an expert, or even a consumer in your client’s or client industry or target market can take as few as 5 minutes up to say 45. A 45-minute interview will deliver approximately 8,000 words that you could cut up into 4 2,000 word blog entries or whatever you like to do with social media content, ur, I mean highly valuable insights. My book on presenting and pitching has multi interviews that I also amplified into blog posts. You bought the book so you’ve read those interviews and will now win more pitches – right?

I was recently interviewed for the Working Without Pants podcast. After Selling Your Agency, was published, I sent it to Rev.com and now have an 8,000-word transcript I will soon edit down into bite-sized blog posts. One will be a foundational blog post on how and why to sell your agency.

Do Videos

Easy… just turn on your webcam (or iPhone) and talk. I mean, you are an advertising agency, right? You can do this and start to own some SEO juice on YouTube. Less easy, but easy enough ideas: Go on the street and do some interviews (social distance yourself, please) or do a webcam interview with a genius (remember you can turn that into copy via an audio transcription company like REV.com.)

Rip Off A Podcast

Here’s a post I created by responding to the Adage interview with Lindsay Slaby. I took the interview, sent it to rev.com for transcription, and commented on what Lindsay was saying. Easy, smart, and brilliant. All around. Here is the blog post that was created by borrowing some content from Ad Age, Ad Age Small Agency Conference Podcast.

Do Your Own Podcast

I have a new Advertising Stories podcast. I interview people. They talk to me. I, well do not steal, but I do get lots of smarts out of their mouths. Plus, the entire process is essentially free.

Do A Google Survey

Five New Advertising Agency Marketing Resources

April 15, 2020 By Peter Leave a Comment

Hi. Thanks for visiting. Here are five new advertising agency marketing resources. I think that they are all well designed for today’s marketing environment. I mean, today’s difficult and crazy marketing environment.

First, About You. And, Time To Pivot.

I’ve been thinking hard about the ‘what and how’ of B2B marketing in the time of the Coronavirus – how is that for a DUH? Why?… because I think that a good portion of the marketing and advertising agency industry is in deep navel-gazing mode. In particular, I’m talking about advertising and marketing communications agencies that are a bit stuck when it comes to their own marketing. Phase 1.0 was freakout and cost reduction. Phase 2.0 seems to be the frozen era (OK, not for all. But, I talk to a lot of agencies and this is what I am hearing). Now, Phase 2.5 offers the question: what are we gonna do to grow?

Clearly, the marketing world is working on thinking through (in descending order): How? to even survive what could be a looong journey; What? might market/client segments should a communication agency’s B2B marketing address/attack (intelligently); and What? form should the agency’s in and outbound marketing even look like? Doing a bit of pivoting is in order. Scenario planning and being proactive is in order.

About Me Being Like You.

Hey, I’m thinking about the same stuff. After all, my client base is primarily comprised of advertising, PR and digital agencies. If this group is frozen, I have to figure out how to market to it. Somedays, I even wonder if y’all will want to market hard again. Me? I dig marketing in a downturn. It makes me sharper.

Sharper? Here are some of the marketing resources that I’m looking at or about to use. I’ll keep you posted on what I eventually employ and how. In the meantime, here you go. I will be adding them to my master Resources list – check it out.

Five New Advertising Agency Marketing Resources. All Designed To Help Your Agency Grow.

Listen Notes. “The most comprehensive podcast database online. Discover the best podcasts. Search podcast show notes and audio transcripts by people, places, or topics.” One way to leverage this search engine is to see if there are any podcasts that might want to interview you re your expertise.

Anchor. “Anchor is an all-in-one platform where you can create, distribute, and monetize your podcast from any device, for free.” Yup, a free, podcasting development tool. Worth a look-see if you want to be like Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway.

Artlist. Great name and URL, right? Royalty-free music for your videos and podcasts.

NinjaOutreach. “Create effective influencer marketing campaigns by filtering through millions of influencers insights to find the one that captures your target audience’s attention.”

Famebit. From YouTube itself… “The Leading Marketplace for Influencers. Powered by data, we built the best in class tools to connect brands with the right creators, enabling branded content that reaches the right audience and inspires action.”

LOL. Want Two More?

I have two more very interesting advertising B2B tools. But, I am saving them just for me. When I use them, I’ll let you know and i’ll add them to the next email about resources. Or, if you are interested, and in the hurry you should be in, give me a shout.

Ad Agencies And The Art Of Philanthropy

April 14, 2020 By Peter Leave a Comment

The Art Of Philanthropy In The Time Of Coronavirus – A Smart Business Move For Ad Agencies

This is an update to my original 2013 blog post – Ad Agencies and the Art of Philanthropy.

I am updating because it is a good time, Coronavirus and all, when people kinda wake up and think a bit more about being philanthropic. This is, of course, good news. However, I think that while giving to the needy or other good causes is a good thing for the world, it is also a smart business strategy. I view giving as a win-win and something, even if clearly a business tool, a great thing to do.

The Art Of Philanthropy and Your Ad Agency

My buddy Russ Stoddard, the main man at Boise’s Oliver Russell agency, woke up one day and asked how he could take his local agency to become global and unignorable. His solution was to rebrand the agency as… We Are A Social Impact Branding Agency. It worked. Oliver Russell went from local to global. Plus, they are also helping numerous good causes while growing the agency. They delivered on the art of philanthropy. A good thing.

Need some more inspiration? Here is a link to Russ’s book: “Rise Up: How to Build a Socially Conscious Business” – a potential blueprint for your agency.

The great majority of advertising agencies have one or more nonprofit clients. It is a wonderfully symbiotic relationship. The nonprofits get high-level creative and the agencies get to feel good, look good to their communities and, most importantly, provide important services to charities.

This charitable work is also good for the agency’s new business program. If done correctly, the nonprofit relationship is strategic. One agency that gets it is Portland’s Grady Britton. You can read about their multi-year program in my article, “An Agency That Does Good” on the Agency Post.

I’ve felt so strongly about the symbiotic aspect of charitable work that I’ve always recommended a strategic approach to my clients. Below is how I’ve represented this concept. If you agree with me, please pass this on to your clients. At a time of reduced government spending, it is important that agencies play a more assertive role in selling the benefits of Strategic Philanthropy.