Advertising Agency Clients Get Lost
Interview: Bill Duggan – Association of National Advertisers
At the end of phase one of my advertising career, I became a client of advertising and public relations agencies. As CEO and founder of Advance Internet’s New Jersey Online from 1995 to 1999 I was tasked, along with a very talented crew, to ‘invent’ online newspapers and new advertising programs. To introduce our new service and grow our brand, I wanted to find an advertising agency that could understand the emerging world of Internet-based news and create new online advertising units that captured the attention of this nascent market.
From 2000 to 2002, I was CEO of the natural language company ActiveBuddy. ActiveBuddy allowed users of Instant Message platforms like AOL’s AIM to talk with a computer who became their smart & friendly 24/7 buddy. In that role, I wanted a PR resource that would make our intelligent instant messaging bots like SmarterChild famous, help us build a huge audience (we did), and make us look hot to prospective acquirers during the first dot-com bubble.
With 16 years of agency experience, I knew what I needed from ad and PR agencies to achieve my objectives, and I had a large Rolodex of agency friends to call on.
I didn’t feel lost in my agency search.
Advertisers Are Lost
Most advertisers looking for an agency do not have these contacts or knowledge of the agency world. They simply do not perform enough searches to act as experienced and efficient buyers. Individual agencies are partially to blame for adding to client confusion by not providing a clear point of difference vs. their competitor agencies. There are over ten thousand marketing agencies. Just imagine how difficult it is to pick the right one. That’s why clients get lost. [Read more…] about The Lost Advertising Agency Client