Peter Levitan & Co.

The New Business of Advertising

Insights

Storify = Instant Content Creation For Ad Agencies

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paula_DeanThere is a link to my first Storify story on Paula Dean a bit further down. I created this magnificent piece of totally compelling can’t-miss viral content in about 30 seconds using Storify. Considering how important, and occasionally painful, content creation is, building stories in 30 seconds is a rather good thing.

What is Storify? Let’s ask the Wiki…

“Storify is a social network service that lets the user create stories or timelines using social such as Twitter, facebook and Instagram. Storify was launched in September 2010, and has been open to the public since April 2011.

Users search through multiple social networks from one place, and then drag individual elements into stories. Users can re-order the elements and also add text to help give context to the readers.

Media organizations have used Storify in coverage of ongoing news stories such as elections and meetings and events. Poynter.org recommended using Storify for covering social movements, breaking news, internet humor and memes, reactions and conversations, and extreme weather.  CBC used Storify to cover the 2011 London Riots and Al Jazzera has a show called “The Stream” that collects perspectives on news stories using Storify.”

The Paula Dean Story

I am showing the  URL for my SEO sensitive friends.  http://storify.com/PeterLevitan/5-video-paths-to-a-heart-attack-from-paula-dean … its all about Paula Dean (nice use of video, frying kinda crackles.)

My 2nd and 3rd stories are all about the impending Vine vs. Instagram video war. I even manage to get “Hugh Hefner” in one of the stories …. https://storify.com/PeterLevitan/instagram-vs-vine  (Interestingly, this was immediately re-tweeted by the Playboy Centerfold – you’ll figure out which one she is.)

My Storify profile page For Vine vs. Instagram story …

Top 10 Instagram vs. Vine Reactions with tweets · PeterLevitan · Storify

 

A Cool Timeline

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Been thinking about the origin and use of “Cool” lately. Came across this chart. Its a start.

Timeline_of_cool

Zillow Advertising: Nice New TV Commercial. But, Why Leave Seattle?

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zillow3dI am starting to think about selling my house so I’m paying attention to real estate advertising. This new TV spot from Zillow hit the spot. The :60 commercial stars a family looking at homes while living in different cites. Or is dad just traveling?  You’ll have to see the surprise (rather) emotional ending to find out.

The commercial was done by Deutsch L.A. (a nice advertising agency.) But, since Zillow is in Seattle…. why did they have to take their business out of town? I could have helped them find at least 5 very sharp agencies in Seattle. They live here.

I’d love to ask Amy Bohutinsky, Zillow’s chief marketing officer, the Seattle question. Did she explore the Seattle ad agency market? Did Seattle advertising agencies not reach out – she’s been at Zillow for 7 years? Did she need a trip to L.A.? I know a few sensitive ad folks up north who could have delivered some sharp advertising — and a decent bottle of wine. When I owned my Portland agency it always killed me when a local client took their business out of town.

Oh well, never mind – at least it’s well-branded advertising that tells a sweet story.  Here is a smart quote from Amy about the ad strategy:

“The process of shopping for a home today is emotional, absorbing, collaborative, and driven by technology and online information. Our ‘Find Your Way Home’ campaign chronicles modern families in ways that most home shoppers can relate — as they search for not just a home, but a place for their life to happen.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=o3bZz_JHyyA

Ad Agencies: Follow The Mobile Advertising Money

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Advertising, design, PR and digital agencies are always searching for the next pot of gold. Determining which revenue pot to aim for (I know “pot” sounds kinda awful) is part of business development planning. As we move deeper into the digital age, we need more tools and insights to help us figure out the best plan and agency structure to meet our client’s rapidly evolving needs.

old emarketer mobile charteMarketer, with their daily charts and information, has been a very insightful guide for business planning. For example, they called the future of mobile advertising fairly early. Some smart and increasingly successful agencies figured out that mobile could be their future and built an agency around delivering mobile services.

Radel Artida of Staff.com, a global recruitment platform, recently sent me the infographic posted below that  shows the IT jobs with the highest pay. I think that it could be used by agency planners to help determine where the money is and is going. The fastest growing categories for IT professionals are mobile development (with Android jobs up 129% and iOS up 190%), cloud computing and gaming. Website development continues to grow, however at a slower pace.

My bet continues to be on mobile. Here’s an idea: I suggest that agency managers start to think through having a thought-leadership program that explores and explains the mobile space for their clients. This serves a couple of purposes. It would force a mobile-lite agency and its staff to begin to learn about the mobile advertising platform, it positions the agency for the increasing move to mobile and it starts to build some mobile SEO honey for the agency blog. It is also a powerful business development strategy.

Staff-infograph_IT-jobs