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The New Business of Advertising

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4 Insane Advertising Agency Home Pages

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I’ve been studying advertising, branding and digital agency websites using my Pinterest Advertising Agency Directory. I’ll be writing about my findings over the next few weeks.

Let’s Start With Insanity?

Here are 4 local and international agency home pages that are insane. Can you imagine an agency that is in the business of branding and digital marketing — and being creative — having a home page that announces: “Coming Soon?”

Allow me to state my somewhat obvious (but not apparently to some agencies) POV.

An existing agency should never, under any circumstances,  have a Coming Soon home page. Visitors will come, see that you have nothing to say, have no creative approach to transitioning from one site to another and will split fast. Will they ever come back? Are they going to keep coming back to see if and when you’ve finally launced the new home page? My bet is not often and maybe never.

One more obvious point, this is not a good thing for your new business program.

The solution: be patient and wait until you make any changes until you’ve designed the new home page ready to go. Here is my little secret. I guarantee that no one is wondering when you are going to update your website. So, sit tight and live with what you have intill you are ready to relaunch. tell your CEO or ECD to chill.

Here are the 4 agencies. I’ll end with my “favorite” serial Coming Soon home page agency and, interestingly, its a big one:

Carrot Creative Coming Soon

Carrot Creative. This is a savvy digital agency. What’s up?

TBWA:LONDON

 

 

TBWA/LONDON, a rather large agency, OK a very big agency with clients like Nissan, Absolute and GSK, had the Coming Soon page on your left up for at least a couple of months.

Baron & Company

Baron & Company. A Bellingham  Washington agency with the tagline, “Technically Creative.”

 

Goodby Silverstein Partners Full Service Integrated Ad Agency Goodby Silverstein Partners old 1983 1

 

Goodby Silverstein & Partners. Get this… the first Coming Soon page is from April 2013 and the second is from 2003. Yikes, these guys are repeat offenders.

The World’s Best Marketing Book?

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I’ve been reading Dan Zarrella for years. His latest book, “The Science of Marketing” is a hard one to put down. It totally delivers my need for geek.

Here is his LinkedIn profile:

Dan Zarrella is the award-winning social media scientist at HubSpot and author of three books: “Zarrella’s Hierarchy of Contagiousness,” “The Social Media Marketing Book” and The Facebook Marketing Book.

He has a background in web development and combines his programming capabilities with a passion for social marketing to study social media behavior from a data-backed position and teach marketers scientifically grounded best practices.

Webinars in his “Science of…” series have drawn upwards of 30,000 registrants. And he holds the Guinness World Record for the largest webinar ever.

The World’s Best Marketing Book?

Is “The Science of Marketing” the best marketing book? It just could be today’s best if you’d like to run marketing programs based on analytical proof vs. assumptions.

I urge you to go out or online and buy it. The book delivers Dan’s quantitative approach to social marketing. As the subtitle says, “When to Tweet, What to Post, How to Blog, and Other Proven Strategies.” Proven being the operative word here. All of this advice is backed up by years of tracking how people use social media, email, webinars and SEO.

Its a “Just the facts” book. Given the crazy world of opinionated social media advice… This book’s findings will help you dazzle your coworkers and friends.

Google Trends Web Search Interest social media how to Worldwide 2004 present

How To Write An Ad Agency Business Plan

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78% of advertising agencies do not have an up to date business plan.

Ok, I made that number up. But, based on my travels through ad land, I am sure that I am close… and, maybe even a bit low.

Without a business plan it is virtually impossible to build the right agency for the future and a new business program that wins new clients and fuels revenues.

Here is a four part template for getting started on planning, steering and managing an agency that will get noticed, grow and prosper in today’s fast-paced advertising and digital marketplace. I call my “instant” 4-Part Business Plan blueprint. It’s essentially a fast-track Q&A to help start the planning process that results in an actionable business plan. [Read more…] about How To Write An Ad Agency Business Plan

The Six Second Advertising Agency C/O Vine

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vine-twitterAdvertising agencies ask…. “How can we look / sound / act different that the other 4,000 agencies?” Well, why not become the “Six Second Agency”?

Business Insider reports that “Nissan Says A 6-Second Vine Might Have Been Better Than Its 30-Second Commercial”

Would certain commercials be better if they were condensed into 6-second Vine videos?

In October 2012, Nissan released a TV spot in which a mid-level accounts guy gets mistaken for a high ranking executive after he gives his boss a ride in his Sentra.

Then a consumer edited the 30-second ad down to six.

Nissan then posted on Vine, “Hey @ellencmayfield you’re on to something. Maybe we only needed 6 secs of airtime for the Carpool ad. :)”

I wouldn’t be surprised if the six-second Vine got more attention that the TV commercial. Why?

  • Vine is still new so any Vine TV spot will get extra attention until advertisers overwhelm us with this type of advertising.
  • We are collectively way ADD. Six seconds is good.
  • Advertising effectiveness wasn’t hurt when TV spots went from :60 to :30 to :15’s.

Back To The Six Second Agency Idea

Here is what I’d do if I still had my agency:

  • Create a micro-department and call it The Six Second Agency.
  • Create 5 Vine spots.
  • Build a simple website.
  • SEO the hell out of it.
  • Make some noise… go get some PR.

If it works, great. If not, hey you just had some inexpensive fun, your employees will think you are cool and your clients (at least the savvy ones) will smile and be glad that they are working with such a smart agency.

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There is a 78% chance that you loved what you just read. So, go here, read my Corleone offer and call me if you are an agency CEO or want to be someday. 

5 Brands With Vine Potential (And, Where Are The Ad Agencies?)

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I’ve been surprised at how few advertising agencies use Twitter’s Vine for agency promotion. What gives? It fits in well… ad guys have smart phones, have ADD which works for Vine’s 6 second videos and the ECD’s all want to be movie directors.

While a lot of brands have Vine accounts, a relatively small percentage of them have been using them particularly effectively, if at all. Here are 5 brands that have made an effort; attempting to d…

Read more from the source: theawsc.com