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The New Business of Advertising

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Try Not To Weep When You Read ADWEAK

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Try Not To Weep When You Read ADWEAK.

6 Years Later: My 2021 take on my 2015 ADWEAK take

ADWEAKI thought that I’d update my 2015 (yes, 2015) blog post about the wonderfully endearing but way too insightful and painful ADWEAK take on the advertising industry. I’m re-upping my extremely positive perspective on ADWEAK because they have begun to up their use of LinkedIn so I see them daily.

And, because they talk about themselves like this – like humans:

What began as a fun parody Twitter account has become a full-blown creative studio. @Adweak has grown organically to over 75k followers with an average of over 3 million impressions a month. But snarky tweets don’t pay the bills. Our real job is working with brands and agencies on a wide variety of creative projects. You name it, we’ve done it. We have a shit-ton of experience with agencies (TBWA\Chiat Day, BBDO, Deutsch, DDB and more) and brands (PlayStation, HBO, Dr. Pepper, Energizer and the list goes on).

We’re good, we’re fast and we’re not A-holes.

ADWEAK – Attitude Is Good

Hey, most advertising agencies have little to no attitude & point of difference. They kinda all use the same lingo and would never say ‘shit‘ or ‘A-hole’ in their descriptor copy. There is little attempt to break out of the crowd. I am talking about having a strong and competitive positioning; established expertise and a smart messaging system that makes them unignorable.

Too bad. But, wait, there’s more. Here are some of the painful but all-too-true ADWEAK posts that blast out to their 81,000 Twitter followers. To put that number in perspective, 20-year-old Digitas North America has 66,000 Twitter followers.

Current favs… cause they are all too spot on.

BREAKING: VMLY&R Considers Adding More Letters To Name

BREAKING: After Several Rounds Of Presentations, New Business Client Informs Agencies They’re Going To Hold Off Making Decision Until Early Next Year

BREAKING: Agency Forced To Revise Schedule To One Day For Creative Development, Three Weeks For Client Approvals

BREAKING: Charmin Toilet Paper Challenges Agency To Make Them A “Lifestyle” Brand (LOL< I actually think that Charmin is a daily lifestyle brand…)

OK, I’ll stop. But first. If you are a client looking for different and unignorable, give these guys a shout: adweakeditor@gmail.com 

Back to my 2015 Post

ADWEAK joined Twitter in 2008 as @adweak. In case you are speed reading this is not… Adweek, the advertising news magazine [Read more…] about Try Not To Weep When You Read ADWEAK

r/Advertising Advertising School

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advertising schoolAn Advertising School For You. Yes, You.

A few months ago I bumped into the r/Advertisingschool on Reddit. I’m like = this is a cool, smart, and free online advertising school. All of this, especially smart, being a good thing for the vast majority of advertising agencies who do not do any employee training – a thing from the higher-margin past.

Not to get too far into the old days. but, when I started in the business at my mega New York agency, I, along with my cohort group, had weekly training sessions. We covered how to communicate with clients, how to be strategic geniuses, how to write creative and media briefs, and how to present.

Those were the old days. Days before agencies curtailed training. Now with r/advertisingschool y’all got… Imagine… A free, smart set of courses that even an “I know it all” veteran can learn from. For example, watch the Digital / Social course on YouTube – its below.

Just Do It

I urge you: agency owners; employees from all groups and your “I wanna work in advertising” types to peruse and watch the sessions. Try one on for size. Here is the school’s description:

r/Advertising School is a free portfolio school hosted in Reddit’s r/Advertising community.

The 12-week program features courses from industry professionals alongside real assignments to promote diversity in the ad industry.

Yes, a course. BUT, BUT… you can watch the advertising school course videos at your own speed when you want.

Hey, just go here and check the videos out.

The courses include:

  • Digital/social
  • Strategy Account
  • PR
  • Media Planning
  • Design
  • Brand building
  • Portfolio

Watch the Digital/Social video as an appetizer… it gets cooking at about the 4:30 minute mark. I have been using and social media thangs since 1995, yes, true. I learned from this one.

 

An Irresistible New Business Sales Pitch

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new business sales pitchLove Our Sales Pitch

Imagine running a business development program that is so powerful your potential clients can’t ignore it. I am talking about the business development power of creating an agency brand position, business proposition, and importantly, a new business development sales pitch system that becomes a must-read. And, even better, a must-read totally unignorable insight that must be passed around entire organizations.

Is this a Mission Impossible? No.

L2 and Me

L2 Business Intelligence for Digital L2 Business Intelligence for DigitalA few years ago when I was running the advertising agency Citrus, I discovered New York’s L2. L2 was a research company that zeroed in on luxury marketing.

Here is what L2 said about itself on its website: [Read more…] about An Irresistible New Business Sales Pitch

13 Free Big Data Tools For Advertising Agency New Business

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advertising agency new businessI misnamed this 2013 blog post. “13 Free Big Data Tools For Advertising Agency New Business.” It should have been named “You are driving marketing directors and potential future clients insane. Here is how to do outbound (ABM) marketing that grabs attention.” Y’all have to get past sending so much ignorable advertising agency new business development messaging.

Talk with any CMO or marketing director or company owner and they will tell you that they receive buckets of incoming business development messages and content from advertising and digital agencies – every week.

The barrage of often ignorable incoming includes these delivery systems: [Read more…] about 13 Free Big Data Tools For Advertising Agency New Business

The Ultimate Advertising Agency List

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How Do Clients Find Your Advertising Agency? Think List.

I just reread this post about the advertising agency list world and I laughed when I realized that I had left out a couple of ways that clients find advertising agencies. First, leverage your network. That means tell your friends, clients, aunt Helen and etc. that you are great and want new clients that are into growing their business.

Beyond just lists (see below) both of these highly-searched websites require that you have a master plan for how to leverage their unique platforms. The platforms? Google and LinkedIn. Passive marketing does not work for either.

OK, back to the original post. There are multiple ways that a prospective client will find an advertising agency. These range from very aggressive agency outreach to highly intelligent outreach (yup, two different approaches) to your inbound program to your agency reputation to being on the radar of search consultants to simply getting found on the day that new client wakes up and says, “How can I find my new advertising agency” and locates an advertising agency list.

While you should have a very intelligent account-based marketing business development program, you must be available when a client searches via an advertising agency list.

There is an extra benefit of my list. Use the list to find your competitors and their best marketing practices. These lists will help you find the winners.

The List Of Advertising Agency Lists

Here is a quick look at the advertising lists you should be on. Some will be easy, some will require a bit of work. But, you need to be able to be found.

Wikipedia’s List of Advertising Agencies. This list is not just the big boys.  An example, Tombras group from Knoxville is on the list.

AdAge’s A-List. Look, there must be some way that AdAge finds these agencies. Maybe you should think about letting the editors know that you are alive.

AdForum. Hey, this is what they say and I’d imagine that clients pay attention… “AdForum’s Global Directory of Advertising Agencies is the advertising industry’s premier resource for learning about agencies in the USA, Europe, Asia, Oceana, and MENA. Our interactive map identifies agencies according to region and core competencies – ranging from digital marketing and social media
strategies to mobile app development, brand engagement, and product design.”

AgencyList. Why not be here? You have to dig this fact… “Agency List has 1st page Google exposure in over 45 major cities.” [Read more…] about The Ultimate Advertising Agency List