Peter Levitan & Co.

The New Business of Advertising

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Your New Advertising Agency Business Plan

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I admit it. I am a bit buzzed. The Formula 1 season just started its first race in sunny Melbourne (it will be crazy and unpredictable this year, by the way.) I had a glass or two of Malbec and then I saw these numbers that show the shift from desktop to mobile advertising from the nice folks at eMarketer. These numbers are dramatic:

Desktop Search to Decline 1.4 Billion as Google Users Shift to Mobile eMarketerOverall desktop ad spending is set to decline in 2014 while mobile grows 83.0%. Not surprising. You knew what is going on, right?

So, why should I be jumping on the desktop to mobile bandwagon? Why? Because advertising agencies, primarily the medium to small, have not yet figured out how to leverage this shift. Well, folks, it is time. Your advertising business plan better take into account what is happening.

Here are my three primary take aways that I think advertising agencies (and digital shops as well. OK, video production companies too) need to incorporate into their business plan…

  1. Video is way hot and WE know how to do this.
  2. Video is hot.
  3. Mobile is the future.

Now, you’d think that a lot of agencies are putting “We know mobile” on their home pages. They are not. Which means they don’t get it yet and that is good for you. Need a crash course in mobile marketing? If you live in Portland go to Mobile Portland  events. If not, find your local mobile developer community and make friends.

 

My First X Rated Advertising Post

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Behold a brilliant campaign from PornHub. If you don’t know who they are, well, they are using you and me to tell their X Rated advertising story. Take a look at the website that asks…

Do you have what it takes to be Creative Director of the world’s #1 adult website?

I love this type of marketing. It builds their brand and reach while entertaining us and… it may land them a great Creative Director. God knows there are a lot sitting around wondering if they will ever have fun again in the ad biz.

Pornhub Creative Director Challenge Bus station campaign. Submitted by Itamar C.Here is one of my favorite executions. (And there are many great ones. Oh, yes, this is a rather rich subject.) Who knew outdoor could be so effective?

Do Not Put Your Advertising Portfolio On Your Website. Really?

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I am working with a Canadian advertising and design agency and am doing a competitive analysis. I came across the website of Halifax’s Burke & Burke agency and found this amazing page where Burke & Burke tells its website visitors that it…

Won’t Show You its Advertising Portfolio!

I thought that I’ve seen it all. Apparently not. Mind blowing approach to using the website to NOT sell the agency. And, why wouldn’t they “want to walk into their competitor’s office with our portfolio”? Is the issue potential idea theft.

Marketing Branding Web Design and Advertising Agency in Halifax Nova Scotia

 

Coca-Cola And The Future of Advertising Agencies

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download (1)Today’s Wall Street Journal article, A New Marketing World Requires New Skills, gives us a sweet opportunity to get into the head of Joe Tripoldi, Coca-Cola’s Chief Marketing and Commercial Officer. Joe shares what he expects from his marketing organization as the world of marketing makes some dramatic and fast-paced shifts from old-fashioned brand-building to digital marketing.

This deep look also provides client-side direction for advertising and digital agencies to better understand where the world of marketing is headed. Not that any of this informations should be news. However, it is reinforcement for the way all agencies should be thinking in March, 2014. Thinking means designing agency services and hiring the right talent for the future. If Coke wants analytics, digital, social, mobile and gamification expertise — all clients will eventually want this and agencies need to plan accordingly.

“The biggest issue for CMOs today is the critical need to ‘re-skill’ their marketing organizations and build new capabilities in areas like big data/analytics, digital, social, mobile, gamification and design.

“This is not just about hiring a few subject-matter experts, but building a depth of knowledge leaders and practitioners in these critical new competencies. If they don’t, marketing organizations will be stuck with traditional 1980s and ’90s brand-building skills in a 21st-century world of an ‘always on’ consumer. The times, they are a-changing.

“You cannot slide over people in your current organization because they have loosely dabbled in these areas. You need to go to the millennial marketplace for ‘natives’ who have lived and breathed these disciplines for much of their lives. Individuals who have passion for connecting brands with people in new ways.

“The talent is out in the marketplace, you just have to be creative to source it in nontraditional ways through communities or networks. Then you have to understand that you may only retain these people for a short time, but the positive, disruptive impact and the knowledge they can impart on your organization is game changing.”