Insights

Is There Life After Advertising?

Peter · December 22, 2015 · 2 Comments

Is There Life After Advertising? Yes.

FYI: This was originally written in 2015. As of July 2016, I now live in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. This is one of North America’s coolest towns and I can still run my ad agency consultation business c/o the sweet waves of Wi-Fi.

December 22, 2015. Sayulita, Mexico.

This is a personal story.

I’ve been asked about life after advertising by many of my clients. And, why not. Advertising owners (my case) wonder if and how they can sell their agency and then wonder ‘what’s next?’

Ad workers see that they will probably age out of the industry by their late forties (a fucking huge problem for our industry’s brain drain that is exacerbated by the absurd notion that it’s a young person’s industry. However the BIG fact is that the margins are so slim that agencies can’t afford to pay their older employees decent salaries and associated benefits).

In other cases, people just get fried crisp or get fired and want out.

In the interest of speed, here are my two lives after advertising. If you have a few more minutes, check out my It’s Me page to read a bit more about my global and local advertising and client side Internet experience.

Life After One – From Saatchi to Internet

1995 – 2001. I left Saatchi in 1995 to work for Advance Internet, a division of The Newhouse’s Advance Publications. I was an early CEO in the reinvention of online news. I then went on to found and run ActiveBuddy. You might have played with our SmarterChild natural language bot / app.

Life After Two – From Owning Citrus to Peter Levitan & Co.

2001 – today. After SmarterChild (a long story) and 9/11 (I was fairly close to ground zero), my wife and I decided that we’d move to Oregon (Bend and Portland) after I bought the ad agency Citrus. I ran that for 8 years. I enjoyed selling it. The experience reminded e of selling my sailboat. The two best days were the day I bought it and the day I sold it.

I started this advertising agency business consultancy after I sold my agency and was asked by a couple of friends to help them craft a new business program. Citrus had done quite well. I’ve been applying my Saatchi and Citrus knowledge to help dozens of agencies build growth strategies during the past four years.

OK. What’s The Point?

I took my skills and founded a consultancy. I’m not unique. But, people love it when I tell that I can work from any part of the world (thank you WIFI and Skype). I kinda lucked into this new career, but I recommend that you do some planning because… you will have a life after advertising.

Here are some links that might deliver food for thought and guidance.

Smart Passive Income: Check out the guru on the idea of earning passive income. Pat Flynn’s Smart Passive Income is a simply brilliant how to start a live-anywhere make real-money business. He made $108,000 last month! Online! In his jammies! Ok, not that easy but… read him.

Grow Supply: Ali Mese tells you how to succeed and if you go right here you can get links to many many free tools and websites that will help you build your new business.

How To Sell Your Ad Agency: A link to my blog posts on selling your agency.

The Bottom Line?

Take my Corleone Offer and call me up. It’s an offer you should not refuse and a faster path to —– how to make the cash to get to What’s Next.

My 500th & Most Valuable Advertising Blog Post About Saatchi

Peter · December 10, 2015 · Leave a Comment

Wowzer – This Is My 500^th Blog Post

I started blogging a few years ago to help promote my ad agency Citrus. We were early and, I have to admit, the blog world was a bit less crowded in the mid-2000’s. Today with over 3,000 marketing services blogs, agency blogs have to work a lot harder and smarter. I’ve tried to do just that here.

To commemorate this personal milestone, I want to make sure that this 500th post is highly valuable to my readership – that’s you. After I ramble a bit about what I think are some of my most useful advertising agency insights, I am going to discuss the essentials of my blogging system as a final point. This system works for me as virtually all of my business leads come from this blog as well as LinkedIn, Twitter, Slideshare and guest posting which are tied into the blog. These social media actions are directed by very clear objectives and are focused on targeting ‘you’ via the use of personas. I can tell you that, if used correctly, social media is a highly effective inbound marketing platform. But, you know that.

I believe that many of my past posts have provided value since they have been read over 159,000 times, have been shared across the web and, most importantly, drive those sweet incoming leads from agencies (hopefully like yours) that are looking for growth strategies.

Here Are My Top Posts

As you’ll see, my second most read post at over 9,000! covers the worst advertising pitch and presentation ever.

“The Worst Advertising Agency Presentation – Ever” is about a Saatchi & Saatchi pitch debacle and was one of the reasons I wrote my book on how to run winning pitches. The outcome of this botched pitch was that Saatchi did not win the global Adidas account and I didn’t get to run the account from my very own Saatchi sports agency. Go ahead, buy the book to see all of our mistakes and how to avoid them from Amazon here.

The worst ever pitch blog post is also the reason I put the word Saatchi in this headline. “Saatchi” is serious blog post headline click bait. More on click bait, or better yet, targeted keyword rich blog headlines a bit later.

The Post: The Worst Advertising Agency Presentation – Ever [Read more…] about My 500th & Most Valuable Advertising Blog Post About Saatchi

Woody Allen’s Take On Living Backwards

Peter · December 4, 2015 · 1 Comment

Woody Allen’s Ultimate Happy Ending

In honor of Woody’s 80th birthday, I offer his take on life.

“In my next life I want to live my life backwards. You start out dead and get that out of the way. Then you wake up in an old people’s home feeling better every day. You get kicked out for being too healthy, go collect your pension, and then when you start work, you get a gold watch and a party on your first day. You work for 40 years until you’re young enough to enjoy your retirement. You party, drink alcohol, and are generally promiscuous, then you are ready for high school. You then go to primary school, you become a kid, you play. You have no responsibilities, you become a baby until you are born. And then you spend your last 9 months floating in luxurious spa-like conditions with central heating and room service on tap, larger quarters every day and then Voila!

You finish off as an orgasm!”

(Photo by Irving Penn)

Side Note

I am a New Yorker who grew up on the upper west side. A Jewish New Yorker to be exact. One of my specialities was explaining Woody’s movie schticks to my parochial school girl friends and two mid-western wives.

Ad Agency Holiday Cards Cheerful?

Peter · December 3, 2015 · 2 Comments

What Is Really Up With Ad Agency Holiday Cards, Etc?

A Tweet from ADWEAK I just had to echo… Hey, I don’t think that overdoing the advertising agency “creative” holiday message (cute cards, emails, videos) is warranted, necessary, distinctive or winnable. Did I say distinctive? How could it be when every agency tries to look cool in this same-time space? Yeah, I know, I’m being grinch-like. But, just sayin.

My advice. Wish your world a Happy New Year. According to the 2014 Advertising Age Assesment of Advertising Agency Self Promotional Stuff… 87% of advertising agencies spend over 60 hours of staff time doing Christmas greetings but only 12% of agencies do New Year’s greetings.

B.S. – Millennials Want Mobile Video Ads To Be On Every Device

Peter · November 23, 2015 · Leave a Comment

A Headline From ADWEEK: “Millennials Want Mobile Video Ads to Be Short and on Every Device”

I know it’s Thanksgiving week and I should be in the spirit. But, I saw this headline and could only laugh at the insanity. The insanity of saying, get this…

Millennials Want Mobile Video Ads to Be Short and on Every Device

The key insane word is WANT. Millenials do not want “Mobile Video Ads to Be Short and on Every Device.” Why does ADWEEK perpetuate this B.S. (like who wants ads all over the place?) I don’t, you don’t and Millenials don’t. Headline copy like this does a major disservice to the advertising industry. I’ve written about the insanity of advertising ubiquity here.

OK, last point. The article that follows this headline does not even support the headline’s point. Read the article by Yahoos Andrew Snyder here. The article is about what works not what is wanted.