Personal Branding

New Improved Advertising Agency Search Process: ANA / 4A’s

Peter · October 31, 2013 · Leave a Comment

Advertising Agency Pitching. Oh, The Uncertainty.

Unfortunately, most client agency reviews come with a great deal of uncertainty. They shouldn’t, but that’s the way it is — or should it be?

The 4A’s and the ANA understand this issue and recently published a new set of guidelines for the advertising agency search process in their report “Agency Selection Briefing Guidance.” From the ANA/4A’s:

The 4A’s and ANA believe there is an opportunity to further improve the agency search process by developing best practice guidance tools around the subject of briefings throughout the agency selection process.

And…

The ANA/4A’s task force believes that every phase of a review, or agency search, requires a thoughtful briefing that
provides specific direction to the agency. The review process should provide escalating information to the agencies as
the review progresses from the initial phases (e.g., RFI, RFP, credentials) to the later phases (including any strategic
and/or speculative work and finals presentations).

The report divides the search process into three phases.

Initial list / RFI Phase
Semi-Finalist RFP Phase
Finalist Phase

This is an important tool that both agencies and clients should read and use for guidance. I think that when you are asked to pitch a new client that you share this document. While it might seem forward and somewhat pedantic of you, I’ll suggest that making the prospect aware of this ANA perspective will be proof of your professionalism and might even help the client tailor their process for success. And, hopefully, yours.

Shit, I Thought I Owned “P”

Peter · September 6, 2013 · Leave a Comment

Now, I am really pissed off. Its like a slap in my mama’s face. I thought that I owned the letter “P”. But, noooo. Seems like Path and Pinterest are gonna battle it out says TechCrunch. Damn, I just don’t have the lawyer ca$h to keep in this game.

Bangkok Food & Sights. What To do When Ads Fail.

Peter · July 16, 2013 · Leave a Comment

I’ve been to South East Asia many times (first time care of my Saatchi client Northwest Airlines.) My next trip is this fall when I think I am going to Thailand, Vietnam and Laos. I highly recommend this area for burnt out ad people. Two weeks in Thailand or Cambodia will clear out the cobwebs.

My top SE Asia experience has always been eating, especially in Bangkok where you can sample food from all the Thai regions.

For your viewing pleasure I offer 51 Explicit Thai Food Pictures and without question the best video on what to do in Bangkok, “25 Amazing Things to do In Bangkok, Thailand.” Both of these are from Migrationology, which is without question the BEST take on Bangkok. Full stop. Thank you Mark Wiens (that’s Mark with a Durian in the photo.)

Advertising Agency New Business: A Personal Update

Peter · July 8, 2013 · Leave a Comment

Here is a quick update on my business life. I’ll be on a mini-vacation for a few days

I started to spin my advertising agency new business consultancy in late February by loading up my blog with keyword-rich “advertising agency new business / business development” content. Around 15,000 words or so in a bunch of evergreen posts. I supported that with tweets for both my posts and retweets of related content.

I continued the inbound marketing program and now have 184 posts.

These include some posts for my book, “Boomercide: From Woodstock to Suicide.”

I supplemented this blog activity with guest posts on the highly visited AdPulp and Agency Post blogs to start to build authority for peterlevitan.com. I am about to start a series on how clients find and choose advertising agencies for Advertising Week.

I built my agency directory on Pinterest using outsourced help from a great assistant in the Philippines via Odesk. Agencies now send me information on their new websites.

I wrote a couple of white papers on how Seattle and Portland agencies use (or overuse) social media on their websites. I sent Seattle Advertising and Digital Agencies and Their Love Of Social Media and a Portland version to Seattle and Portland agencies. Despite how brilliant the white papers are, I wasn’t surprised that I only got a 5% response (as in, thanks.) Why? I don’t think most agencies are sufficiently curious about virtually anything but their own navel. (I only write this because people tell me they enjoy my honesty.)

I built “The Good, Bad & Ugly”, a review of advertising agency websites and how agencies do or do not do a good job with their interent marketing programs. I gave the presentation in New York to a group of agency CEO’s. I’ve also presented this in Seattle and Portland.

I just ran a Portland Advertising Federation event about how advertising agencies could / should work with startups. I interviewed folks from Wieden+Kennedy, Nike+ Accelerator, Upstart Labs and Opal, a very smart startup that a Portland agency launched. I’ll put up a video of the event soon.

The net.. you may be wondering…

I’ve got agency clients in Portland, New York, Milan and hopefully Mexico (care of a recent discussion.) I’ve worked on agency positioning, agency Internet marketing, the whole enchilada advertising agency new business plan and RFP management. I have been helpful. Or, so they say.

So far so good.

Nerds.com

In the past couple of weeks a team from the USA (that’s me plus one more), Budapest, Scotland and soon Thailand launched a new business based on the power of Nerds (its now in alpha for testing purposes.) Nerds will be a website plus for nerds and the people interested in the nerd lifestyle. Here is a great stat… there are over 2.2 million monthly broad matches for the term “nerds” on Google. This is huge. The goal of the business is to “own” the idea of nerd and monetize it. I’d like to think of the business as becoming a Fab meets Betches Love This.

Cartoon / comics characters might play a large role. We are meeting with a LARGE animation company this week in California. Who knows.

This is my third internet start-up.

Stay way tuned.