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Anomaly: Powerful “About Us” Website Copy

Peter · March 11, 2013 · 1 Comment

Like most websites, advertising and digital agency websites have About Us sections. Read them here. Unfortunately, most agency About Us sections are uninspiring. This is a big missed opportunity.

Anomaly   New York   London   AmsterdamThe agency Anomaly (one of the most effective agency brand names by the way – a perfect agency brand name for our times), kicks it by just listing its excellent press from major league publications. What more could the agency possibly say about themselves that would inspire an incoming call from a mega client?

Just read the glowing press. The copy hits all of the current client-think hot buttons (“thinks different, new model agency, idea-led, structured for innovation.”) You know that Anomaly is cranking its PR machine and/or its leaders are as good at promoting themselves as they are promoting their clients. Strangely  most agencies are a bit too reticent when it comes to PR.  I’ve seen this reticence even at agencies with savvy PR partners. Why wouldn’t you want to seek out and massage trusted third-parties to generate this kind of lavish praise. In Anomaly’s case, it’s praise that tells us what to expect.

Since its inception in 2004, the founders and directors have truly shown a different way of doing things, blurring the borders between providing traditional marketing services and working as a business development partner. Eschewing the traditional client/agency relationship, Anomaly works to develop intellectual property for both itself and for its clients…
Business Week

When a client comes in with an advertising problem, Anomaly addresses it more broadly as a business issue, analyzing everything from design to product development.
Fast Company

Anomaly bills itself very clearly as a new model agency. It describes itself as a response to the notion that the old agency models “are all broken” and “the traditional solutions are becoming less and less effective”. Its positioning sounds like a bunch of cliches, because so many agencies are talking about the need to re-gear their approach around the same principles: ideas-led, media-neutral, integrated, multi-disciplinary. Anomaly, though, launched with these principles at its core.
Campaign

Anomaly is definitely not an “Ad agency” the company sets store by developing its own intellectual property which it can license to clients in return for share in revenues. Their aspiration is to be a product developing IP company, marketing their own portfolio of IP as well as doing that for major brands.
Creative Review

As you might expect from its name, Anomaly is no ordinary agency; it is more of a response to the countless calls for agencies to drag themselves into the 21st century.
Campaign

Anomaly decries tradition and craves revolution. Its real selling point is that its principals have diverse skill sets in interactive marketing, media strategy, and design – as well as advertising – so that clients can have faith they will get a marketing solution rather than an ad campaign.
AdAge

“They were intriguing to us because they weren’t mired down in a lot of layers. They were great creative and strategic people on a mission to create a vision for their agency to solve client problems,” says Sara Schmid, advertising manager. “They were very conscientious … about how things worked in stores, how the visual language would play into it.”
Adweek

The agency [Anomaly] is structured for innovation and multidisciplinary problem solving – not just the partners, but every member of the team contributes on every project on all levels.
Creativity

Anomaly have started up to capitalize on the desire among marketers to do things differently – and the inability of many bigger agencies to accomplish that.
New York Times

Instrument: Advertising Agency Of The Week

Peter · March 8, 2013 · Leave a Comment

Instrument : Digital Craft

When I ask digital / advertising people in the Pacific Northwest what agency is hot, they most often mention Portland’s digital agency Instrument. We all know that hot is a relative term but when I hear an agency’s name and “hot” come up often, I have to assume that something is up. Portland gets hot as we’ve been living with Wieden + Kennedy and their definition of the concept of hot for decades… with no end in sight. Even today’s white hot 72andSunny’s luminescence will dim in comparison if they can’t keep Samsung moving forward.

So, why is Instrument hot? It’s usually a combination of factors, but the secret ingredient is generally having cool clients that are currently hot in their own right and want to nail younger markets (OK, I’ll calm down on the temperature thing.)

In Instrument’s case, they list work for client’s like: Google’s search app (and Oscars, Olympics and March Madness work), Nike’s Fuelstream and Designedtomove.org which had its introduction at the Clinton Global Initiative, the Colors Campaign for Beats by Dre, and Red Bull #givesyouwings. Google, Nike, Red Bull and Dre. Not bad. The only possible issue I see is that there is a concentration in work for Nike and Google. Most agencies would be glad to take this, but client concentration, as in billings, can wind up being painful.

Oh, one more cool factor = the office. Being Portland, Instrument has a wide open space with a wooden TeePee — take that Brooklyn, NY! (Image and office tour at VSCO):

VSCO-Instrument-Portland-3

 

 

 

 

 

Bottom line? Instrument will be a very interesting agency to watch to see if it maintains its trajectory. They have clearly excited super brands and have gotten repeat business that bodes well for their creative and tech chops and client service (an element not to be underrated.)

My bet is that the key to Instrument’s success will be how to manage their growth with the need for building a diverse client base via a smart business development program and some needed national press. In this case, not being in Brooklyn hurts a bit. That said, it’s nice to watch Instrument kill it in Portland.

See other Advertising Agency Of The Week agencies

Ad Agencies: Hire Mobile App Developers

Peter · March 6, 2013 · Leave a Comment

I’ve discussed the importance of ad agencies becoming mobile marketing experts. My point is that mobile is a major growth area that remains an opportunity area because no one has broken the mobile marketing code — yet. There is still room to become an expert.

The Wall Street Journal ran an article today about mobile app developers. It included a nice graphic that illustrates the demographic profile of the average mobile developer. My take away is that a savvy agency could become home to some of these developers ( they are smart, young and inexpensive) to accelerate an agency’s move to mobile expertise. Here you go.

Unmasking the App Developer - WSJ.com

 

 

It Is Time For Advertising Agencies to Go Mobile

Peter · March 4, 2013 · 3 Comments

I’ve been reading the mobile advertising tea leaves. Here are two cups of rather green tea that suggest that savvy advertising and digital agencies should be allocating some (a lot of?) staff time to understanding shifts and opportunities arising in the mobile advertising space. As you can see from the Gartner study below, mobile ad spend in North America is expected to rise by over 100% by 2016. 

Mobile Advertising Revenue by Region, Worldwide, 2012-2016 (Millions of Dollars)

2012

2013

2014

2016

North America

3,181.5

3,825.7

4,694.9

8,866.2

Source: Gartner (November 2012)

Different types of mobile advertising are evolving at a different pace and in different directions. Mobile search — including paid positioning on maps and various forms of augmented reality, all of which can be informed by location — will contribute to drive mobile ad spending across the forecast period, although it will diminish in strength as the period progresses.

Gartner believes that mobile display ad spending will grow and take over from mobile search. It will initially remain divided between in-app and mobile Web (in-browser) placements — reflecting consumer usage — although after several years of in-app dominance, Web display spending will take over in-app display from 2015.

Another tea leaf reading comes from Kliner Perkins via Tech Crunch, “Kleiner Perkins Has Now Put Over $450 Million In Nearly 40 Mobile Investments.”

Head over to Tech Crunch to hear Kliener Perkins partner Matt Murphy discuss the firm’s investment of $450 million in 40 mobile companies.

As Murphy explains, these investments include both the $200 million iFund (launched in 2008) and separate investments. So now the $450 million in mobile investments are part of the firm’s digital investing in both consumer and enterprise companies…

And Kleiner has built a pretty impressive collection of consumer-focused mobile investments including Shopkick, Path, Spotify, Pinger and Square. Of late, the focus has expanded to enterprise with companies like Apperian, Crittercism and Egnyte.

This is action that agencies of the future need to get into.

Here are three tips for getting going in the mobile space:

1. Hang out with your city’s mobile developers. for example, in Portland we have Mobile Portland which hosts monthly presentations. You could even tap into Portland’s vibrant mobile community by watching some of the presentation videos on the website.

2. Go to mobile conferences. Then write mobile advertising white papers to share with clients and prospects.

3. Offer some of your office space to mobile developers to get them into your ecosystem. Maybe start to work with local incubators and accelerators to nurture new mobile companies.

4. Drop some investment coin and buy or merge with a mobile advertising company.

A Happy Case History And An Ad Agency Sold To WPP

Peter · March 4, 2013 · 1 Comment

Client case histories are probably as old as the advertising industry itself. So, how can an agency show its expertise and ROI chops without sounding like every other agency down the street?

Think different.

Canadian ad agency John St., which was just purchased by WPP, created this great video-driven case history of how they made Chelsea Bedano’s 8th birthday party a huge success. The agency employed direct mail, out-of-home media and social media to deliver the message. The results put smiles on everyone’s face.

In case you missed this case (which means you were not one of the 350,000 plus viewers of the YouTube video (!)….

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