• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
Peter Levitan & Co.

Peter Levitan & Co.

The New Business of Advertising

  • Contact
  • Blog
  • Podcast
  • My Story
  • Resources
  • Show Search
Hide Search

New Business

Anomaly: Powerful “About Us” Website Copy

Peter · March 11, 2013 · 1 Comment

Like most websites, advertising and digital agency websites have About Us sections. Read them here. Unfortunately, most agency About Us sections are uninspiring. This is a big missed opportunity.

Anomaly   New York   London   AmsterdamThe agency Anomaly (one of the most effective agency brand names by the way – a perfect agency brand name for our times), kicks it by just listing its excellent press from major league publications. What more could the agency possibly say about themselves that would inspire an incoming call from a mega client?

Just read the glowing press. The copy hits all of the current client-think hot buttons (“thinks different, new model agency, idea-led, structured for innovation.”) You know that Anomaly is cranking its PR machine and/or its leaders are as good at promoting themselves as they are promoting their clients. Strangely  most agencies are a bit too reticent when it comes to PR.  I’ve seen this reticence even at agencies with savvy PR partners. Why wouldn’t you want to seek out and massage trusted third-parties to generate this kind of lavish praise. In Anomaly’s case, it’s praise that tells us what to expect.

Since its inception in 2004, the founders and directors have truly shown a different way of doing things, blurring the borders between providing traditional marketing services and working as a business development partner. Eschewing the traditional client/agency relationship, Anomaly works to develop intellectual property for both itself and for its clients…
Business Week

When a client comes in with an advertising problem, Anomaly addresses it more broadly as a business issue, analyzing everything from design to product development.
Fast Company

Anomaly bills itself very clearly as a new model agency. It describes itself as a response to the notion that the old agency models “are all broken” and “the traditional solutions are becoming less and less effective”. Its positioning sounds like a bunch of cliches, because so many agencies are talking about the need to re-gear their approach around the same principles: ideas-led, media-neutral, integrated, multi-disciplinary. Anomaly, though, launched with these principles at its core.
Campaign

Anomaly is definitely not an “Ad agency” the company sets store by developing its own intellectual property which it can license to clients in return for share in revenues. Their aspiration is to be a product developing IP company, marketing their own portfolio of IP as well as doing that for major brands.
Creative Review

As you might expect from its name, Anomaly is no ordinary agency; it is more of a response to the countless calls for agencies to drag themselves into the 21st century.
Campaign

Anomaly decries tradition and craves revolution. Its real selling point is that its principals have diverse skill sets in interactive marketing, media strategy, and design – as well as advertising – so that clients can have faith they will get a marketing solution rather than an ad campaign.
AdAge

“They were intriguing to us because they weren’t mired down in a lot of layers. They were great creative and strategic people on a mission to create a vision for their agency to solve client problems,” says Sara Schmid, advertising manager. “They were very conscientious … about how things worked in stores, how the visual language would play into it.”
Adweek

The agency [Anomaly] is structured for innovation and multidisciplinary problem solving – not just the partners, but every member of the team contributes on every project on all levels.
Creativity

Anomaly have started up to capitalize on the desire among marketers to do things differently – and the inability of many bigger agencies to accomplish that.
New York Times

Instrument: Advertising Agency Of The Week

Peter · March 8, 2013 · Leave a Comment

Instrument : Digital Craft

When I ask digital / advertising people in the Pacific Northwest what agency is hot, they most often mention Portland’s digital agency Instrument. We all know that hot is a relative term but when I hear an agency’s name and “hot” come up often, I have to assume that something is up. Portland gets hot as we’ve been living with Wieden + Kennedy and their definition of the concept of hot for decades… with no end in sight. Even today’s white hot 72andSunny’s luminescence will dim in comparison if they can’t keep Samsung moving forward.

So, why is Instrument hot? It’s usually a combination of factors, but the secret ingredient is generally having cool clients that are currently hot in their own right and want to nail younger markets (OK, I’ll calm down on the temperature thing.)

In Instrument’s case, they list work for client’s like: Google’s search app (and Oscars, Olympics and March Madness work), Nike’s Fuelstream and Designedtomove.org which had its introduction at the Clinton Global Initiative, the Colors Campaign for Beats by Dre, and Red Bull #givesyouwings. Google, Nike, Red Bull and Dre. Not bad. The only possible issue I see is that there is a concentration in work for Nike and Google. Most agencies would be glad to take this, but client concentration, as in billings, can wind up being painful.

Oh, one more cool factor = the office. Being Portland, Instrument has a wide open space with a wooden TeePee — take that Brooklyn, NY! (Image and office tour at VSCO):

VSCO-Instrument-Portland-3

 

 

 

 

 

Bottom line? Instrument will be a very interesting agency to watch to see if it maintains its trajectory. They have clearly excited super brands and have gotten repeat business that bodes well for their creative and tech chops and client service (an element not to be underrated.)

My bet is that the key to Instrument’s success will be how to manage their growth with the need for building a diverse client base via a smart business development program and some needed national press. In this case, not being in Brooklyn hurts a bit. That said, it’s nice to watch Instrument kill it in Portland.

See other Advertising Agency Of The Week agencies

An Agency Website That Works From Copacino+Fujikado

Peter · March 2, 2013 · 5 Comments

Hi.

If you go to AdPulp… You will see a post I put up yesterday on how the Seattle agency Copacino+Fujikado has done a smart digital trick with their website that puts most other ad agency (and digital for that matter) “wanna-be” we’ll show you our social chops efforts to shame.

Advertising Agency Wake Up Call From eMarketer

Peter · March 1, 2013 · 1 Comment

I woke up, read my mail and saw these three quotes in an eMarketer email. They got me thinking fast.

You are an advertising agency. You worry about how to be digitally relevant  in the next couple of years — or perish. Here are just three quotes from eMarketer that can act as thought starters. if these don’t start your mind, maybe its time to, um, bail?

By 2016 nearly a quarter of the world will be using location based services.

US online video ad spending will nearly triple in the next four years.

43 million Americans convert to using smart phones every minute.

If you need one more idea, another path to agency success lies in the following eMarketer chart. And, no it isn’t rushing onto the Facebook or Twitter scrum.

social media usage instagram and pinterest

Why Don’t Advertising & Digital Agencies Have A Business Plan?

Peter · February 26, 2013 · Leave a Comment

Today’s marketing advertising and digital agencies need a well-considered marketing plan to plan and build a profitable marketing communications agency for the future. The problem: most agencies don’t have a plan.

Through my experience as a board member of the Portland Advertising Federation, a business development director working across the global Saatchi & Saatchi Advertising Worldwide network, President of the Newspaper Association of America’s Digital Federation and an Internet entrepreneur, I have been continually amazed that most agencies, media and tech companies don’t have a master plan. Considering the rapid changes happening in the advertising and technology industries, I can’t imagine navigating the marketplace without one. [Read more…] about Why Don’t Advertising & Digital Agencies Have A Business Plan?

  • « Go to Previous Page
  • Page 1
  • Interim pages omitted …
  • Page 70
  • Page 71
  • Page 72
  • Page 73
  • Page 74
  • Page 75
  • Go to Next Page »

Primary Sidebar

  • Featured
  • Resources
  • Podcast
  • WOW! Business Development Via AI
  • The Big Advertising Agency Resource List
  • ChatGPT Loves Me. Does ChatGPT Love You?
  • How To Start, Grow and Sell An Advertising Agency
  • Which Social Media Strategy Is Best For Advertising Agency New Business?
  • How to Build A Winning Advertising Agency Business Development Program
  • How To Move To Mexico
  • The Big Advertising Agency Resource List
  • What Is Your Elevator Pitch
  • Advertising Agency Process and Profitability
  • Check our ChatGpt FAQ Generator
  • Random Marketing And Advertising Resources
  • Bob Hoffman | The Ad Contrarian On Advertising Agency Presentations And Pitching
  • How To Be A Brilliant Podcast Guest
  • Want Advertising Agency New Business Leads? The Ratti Report Delivers
  • How To Manage A Brain On A Zoom Sales Meeting
  • YES! You Can Run A Powerful Zoom Meeting
  • How To Win A Mobile Dating App Client – On Zoom

Post Archive

Subscribe

Subscribe to the Advertising Stories Podcast

Apple PodcastsGoogle PodcastsSpotify

Contact

Email Peter
Connect on LinkedIn

Peter Levitan & Co.

Copyright © 2026 • All Rights Reserved • Peter Levitan & Co. • Log in