Smart Agencies

How To Build A Kick-Ass Advertising Agency

Peter · June 2, 2023 · Leave a Comment

Do You Want To Build A Kick-Ass Advertising Agency? Here’s The Book

I am sure that the answer is yes. Who does not want to build that winning advertising agency?

So, I asked Google Bard’s AI tool to help me find the right person to help you… and then have him write a 261-page treatise on how to get the job done.

Peter to Google Bard: “Does the marketing world need a new book about how to run a profitable and happy advertising agency?”

Bard: “It’s difficult to say whether the world really needs a new book on how to run an advertising agency. However, if the book offers unique insights, valuable advice, and practical tips, it will be an invaluable resource for people in the advertising industry or those interested in starting their own agency.”

Peter to Google Bard: “Who should write the comprehensive book on advertising agency management?”

Google Bard: “The best candidate to write a book about how to run and grow an advertising agency would be someone who has a deep understanding of the advertising industry, someone who has run an agency and can provide practical, actionable advice to those looking to start or run their own successful agency. It would also help if that person was also an advertising agency client.

According to my assessment, that person is Peter Levitan.”

Buy the world’s most comprehensive multi-subject agency how-to book HERE.

Improve Your LinkedIn Profile Fast (2023)

Peter · May 19, 2023 · Leave a Comment

Go To My LinkedIn Profile To See How To Improve Your LinkedIn Profile In Five Minutes

See it here.

You can have one of your own little powerful baby speakers in your LinkedIn profile to tell the world what you do or who you are — go to your profile and the edit section.

You will see “Your Audio Recording” — Well use it for an audio message.

2 More Things.

Pass this newsletter on. I need more subs. Please. Pretty.
2. Buy my new book: “How To Build A Kick-Ass Advertising Agency”

Airbnb’s CEO Brian Chesky On Remote Work

Peter · May 15, 2023 · Leave a Comment

Airbnb’s CEO Brian Chesky on Remote Work – A Very Smart Take For Advertising Agencies

I just listened to a Verge decoder interview with the rather brilliant Brian Chesky. Definitely worth a listen to hear his take on new Airbnb features and, most importantly to me and anyone in creative management, how he manages the remote work, office + work-from-home issue. Here are some key takeaways on how to think through remote work and who should or should not come into the office…

Go, Brian:

I generally think the future is flexibility. Here’s the calculation every CEO has to make: are you more productive having people physically in an office together and then constraining who you hire to a 30-mile or a 60-mile commuting radius to the office?

A lot of our software engineers or accountants, certain types of lawyers, we probably don’t need them physically in the office with everyone else. There’s certain creative functions or people on certain teams that we probably do want together physically quite a lot.

Now with regards to remote work, again, just to clarify something, we’re not purely remote, like we have really nice offices, and many people come to the office every day. We just don’t mandate people come to the office every day.

And then the question is, “Do we need them together 50 weeks a year?” And the answer for us is no.

A lot of young people are realizing they could go to another country for a month at a time or a few weeks at a time. When I was in my 20s, I never imagined living in another country for a month. But I actually do think you’re going to have a generation of people that are going to be much more mobile, that are going to potentially choose, at different points of their lives, to live in different parts of the world.

And by the way, last April, we put out our policy and said Airbnb employees can live and work anywhere. But I said, “I do not think the future is remote work. I think the future is flexible.” And I said, “We want to combine the best of Zoom with the best of being together.” We don’t want to recreate this world of Wall-E where everyone’s just staring at screens all day and no one has any interaction in the physical world.

So, but the answer, maybe the final answer to your question is this: the more organized you are, the more you can, the more flexible you can be with employees. So I always wondered, why do you need people in the office to know if they’re working? If you have everyone on a road map and you track everything every single week, then you don’t need people to be in an office to know they’re getting work done.

The value of being in the office might be human connection. The value of the office might be that if we live our lives in front of a screen, we’re going to be very lonely. The value might be that it’s hard to trust people when you never have face-to-face interaction. And the other problem with Zoom is you can’t have side, hallway conversations.

I Agree – Remote Work Is Here Forever

I also agree that flexibility is the key. I wrote extensively about this in my new book How To Build A Kick-Ass Advertising Agency. Its 27 chapters cover every aspect of how to run a kick-ass PROFITABLE advertising agency.

The Full decoder Interview Is Here

The Big Advertising Agency Resource List

Peter · April 27, 2023 · 47 Comments

Advertising Agency Resource List – Updated Often

My Advertising Agency Resource List is curated often to help advertising, digital, design, and PR agencies easily find the inspiration and industry resources that will help y’all build killer agencies and careers.

If I were you, I’d grab a glass of Larkmead Cabernet Sauvignon 2016 (LOL only $150 or a nice craft beer – a bit less expensive) and check out all of these links. I guarantee that at least one of these websites and/or tools will help you or your team grow your agency.

Dig growth and sharing? Therefore my friends, go ahead and share this page with your friends, family, and staff.

A kudo from David Ogilvy: “I wish I had this advertising resource list when I was in the ad biz. All I had was my brain.”

OK, one more. This here Peter Levitan blog has over 860 posts dedicated to helping your marketing communications company grow. I hope that my insights on the art and science of agency business development, growth, and management help you to make more bucks. Speaking of resources and advice, take me up on my Corleone offer.

AI Tools (April 2023)

Yikes. There are new AI tools designed for marketers every day. OK, OK. But, here are a few of my current favorites (I stress current):

ChatGPT. Obviously, you know about this. Here is a nice prompts mini-list for marketers:

Jasper and Copy.ai are AI content generators that utilize AI to generate high-quality content for various purposes. Jasper has been in the market for longer and is more feature-filled, while Copy.ai offers templates, a chatbot, and team features.

MarketMuse is a content optimization tool that utilizes NLP and machine learning algorithms to improve the quality and relevance of your content for better SEO and audience engagement.

Pictory and Synthesia are AI video generators that create high-quality videos without prior experience in video editing or design. Synthesia offers over 60 languages and various templates, a screen recorder, a media library, and more.

A Couple More Quickies:

Website Speed Is Good. A slow website drives down SEO. Check out your website.

Google PageSpeed Insights. Do you know how fast your website download speed is and how its performance ranks against your competitive agencies? Here’s the drill. If your site takes too long to download, it will lose some traffic.

Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test. Here’s another very important test. If you are like me, over 20% of your website visitors are looking at you on a mobile device then you better make sure that they are digging how fast your website loads.

BROWSEO.We might be getting a bit geeky here. That said, BROWSEO helps you view any web page like search engines see it. The tool helps you to identify issues with your site and with your current and future clients’ websites.

And, To help Your Thought Leadership Program: What Are People Searching For?

AnswerThePublic. This is a free visual tool that shows you what questions and queries your consumers have by getting a free report of what they’re searching for at Google.

Exploding Topics. Yes, just like it sounds.

Google Trends. Chances are good that you are aware of Google Trends. This a powerful tool to help you know what is hot and what is not on Google’s search universe. A look at the top 2019 Google searches may or may not make you a fan of humanity.

Social Mention. Ever wonder what the world is saying about you or your company? Here you go.

OK – The Advertising Agency Resource List…

Here are the topics covered:

Advertising Agency News Sites
Ad Agency Directories
Top Advertising Blogs
Favorite Social Media Tools
Video Marketing Tools & Information
Creative Inspiration & Idea Generation
Creative Space & Time
Online Advertising Education
Online Legal Resources
Life After Advertising & How To Make $$$
Top Twitter Tools
Top Advertising And Design Awards
Marketing & Advertising Podcast
Marketing Tool Generators

Advertising Agency News Resources

The Ratti Report. Your agency needs fresh business development leads, right? So check out this website for a daily list of business development opportunities. News you can use to buy that new Tesla Roadster.
Advertising Age. Ad Age delivers the latest news from the world of advertising and marketing agencies.
Ad Asia Online. AdAsia Online focuses on automation, advertising technology, and creative technology,
AdNews. Australia’s advertising, marketing, and media industries news resource.
Adweek. Adweek covers media news, including print, technology, plus.
branding in asia. Need to know what’s up in the Asian marketing and advertising world? Sure you do. Check out this comprehensive resource for creative work, news, interviews, and insights. Read it and you just might take the next non-stop to Singapore.
Business Insider. Business Insider’s daily take on the ad industry.
Campaign Asia. Campaign Asia reports on advertising and emerging media in the Asia Pacific region.
Campaign Magazine. Ad industry news from the UK’s advertising industry “bible”.
Communication Arts. Print publication offering competitions, forums, feature articles, job bank, graphic design resources and online shopping.
Creative. The magazine of promotion and marketing.
Digiday. Digiday creates content, services, and community that foster change in media and marketing.
Direct Marketing News. Provides news, feature articles, columns, and special reports on direct marketing.
The Drum. The alternative to Campaign. Delivers lots of news and views.
MediaPost. Comprehensive advertising and media industry coverage.
TechCrunch. Keep up (or try to keep up) with the fast-paced world of startups and VCs.

Ad Agency Directories

Top Advertising And Design Awards

Peter · April 27, 2023 · 7 Comments

A Lovely List Of The Top Advertising Awards

Put yourself in a marketing client’s shoes. They want to find and select a new advertising, digital or design firm. How to do that? They ask friends; take hours searching the Internet; maybe your agency got its account-based marketing down and the client now knows about the agency; the client hires an agency search consultant or… maybe they look at the top advertising and design awards to find an agency that a third party loves. A third party that gave the agency an award and big kisses. In a world of over 4 trillion ad and digital agencies, a client needs some help.

This list provides a list of the top advertising and design awards plus: deep thoughts on why you should even bother doing the advertising award game. This game is costly and time-consuming.

Across my global and regional advertising career, I’ve won big creative awards like the One Show, EFFIES and regional ad awards. There is a system to winning… Here are my views on advertising awards objectives and strategies. It is mindblowing how many advertising agencies do not know how to enter an award show — to win.

Note: This advertising awards list gets updated. Let me know if I am missing an award.

Another note: This is obvious but is worth mentioning. Even if you do not want to send out an award entry, these websites will point you to a great place to steal ‘winning’ ideas.

Advertising Awards Are Good… But, Maybe Start Here: Why Enter Award Shows? Do You Have A Strategy?

Winning the right advertising awards is good for business and agency and client morale. Just make sure you know why you are entering. Too many agencies don’t approach the award process with a plan or objectives beyond the search for ego fulfillment. This can make the whole effort a bit too C R A Z Y. But, you know that. Or, do you? Go here to hear an advertising award judge on his less-than-optimal experience reading agency entries.

I have a memory about the power of awards from my first day at Saatchi & Saatchi London way back in the 1990s. I walked through the creative floor and noticed a tall glass case randomly stuffed with lots of creative trophies. This haphazard display delivered two messages: 1) Saatchi wins lots of awards and 2) they don’t take these too seriously. Of course, the second point was bull shit. Saatchi was always about looking like a winner and the award case proved that point in a cheeky manner. It worked better than the usual and obvious shelf of awards that sit behind the ad agency receptionist’s head.

I have always had mixed feelings about advertising awards. On one hand, they are, like winning an Academy Award, i.e. ridiculous. No one ad, digital program or actor is the “best.” On the other hand (the one with the wallet), they are way expensive. As an agency owner, I often cringed when a creative director came to me with his handout asking us to spend hundreds on award entries.

However money aside, advertising awards have some very big advantages for agencies, clients, and creative-class workers:

The awards celebrate creativity itself. Creative strategies, art, copy and the media platforms that deliver the work.

They help our most talented people get noticed.

They help smart well-designed agencies get noticed by occasionally confused clients who need second party confirmation when selecting an agency. To me, this is a very important point and one that makes writing those increasingly expensive entry checks worth the cost. Awards should be a big part of an agency’s business development program – not just an ego stroker.

To put all of this go-for-it into context, I wrote about the Portland agency Pollinate a few years back that has done very well (!) by hammering Advertising Age’s Small Agency awards show. The blog post, “How To Win The Ad Age Small Agency Award? Twice?” is a demonstration of the value of entering and winning an award that has meaning for prospective clients because it is delivered via an industry-leading publication. Check it out.

Last point before the list. Award judges have told me that around 30% of agencies do not know how to create an entry that is designed to win. Poor copy, poor strategy, even typos. Many agencies rush through the process at the very last minute. Do you? Do you have an annual award plan? Who is in charge?