Peter Levitan & Co.

The New Business of Advertising

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Bullshit And Your Advertising Agency

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Bullshit As Advertising Agency Branding

An Isreali, New Yorker, and a Mexican walk into a bar. No, this isn’t the beginning of a joke. It is a blog post about advertising agency bullshit and branding. I just happened to eat with this group last night and we talked about the definition of truth.

I have been thinking a lot about bullshit lately… I suspect like many Americans.

As a guy that grew up in New York, I think that I have both a pretty good bullshit meter and a practiced tolerance for B.S. However, I am now wondering just what the real meaning of bullshit is. Given the amount of fibbing (I am being kind) that comes out of Washington every day, I suspect that our bullshit goalposts have shifted. And, as you might suspect, I am wondering what this shift means for advertising agency marketing.

A Bullshit Definition

Here is what Merriam-Webster says:

Definition of bullshit 

1: informal, usually vulgar: to talk foolishly, boastfully, or idly

2: informal, usually vulgar: to engage in a discursive discussion

3: informal, usually vulgar: to talk nonsense to especially with the intention of deceiving or misleading

And, just for the hell of it, a definition of a lie:

Definition of lie 

1: to make an untrue statement with intent to deceive

2: to create a false or misleading impression

Being Remarkable

I talk a lot to my advertising agency marketing clients about how they can become remarkable – or, just perceived as being remarkable. This means positioning the agency and its communications messaging to stand out from the pack. To give an ADHD-type client prospect the information they need to make a decision to make contact. Quickly.

Clearly, one way to do this is to make sure that any of your early contacts, via your website, social media or account based marketing, understand that you are great. A path, that channels the boxer Muhamid Ali, would be to say, “I am the greatest”. It worked for Ali. But, could you support this statement in the way that he did? He was a kick-ass competitor, are you?

I imagine that most advertising agencies can find the words to help them stand out. In most cases, this simply means having being “remarkable” be a serious objective. There is an art to this. In their heyday, Saatchi & Saatchi Advertising told their clients that “Nothing is impossible”. A bold statement, an attitude, that got prospects thinking hard about having that initial conversation.

Is Your Advertising Agency Remarkable?

So, what can you say that drives interest and sells in your remarkableness — but isn’t total bullshit?

 

 

Apple or British Airways?

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Does Apple Know Its Advertising History?

Is Apple’s derivative “Color Flood” Parkour TV ad OK? 

It might be if it was actually better strategically or creatively than Saatchi’s famous 1989 face TV commercial for British Airways.

I see things like this look-alike ad and I wonder if the director knows ad history… Or?

Regardless, look at the Apple ad and then the Face commercial. It was produced at the height of Saatchi’s excellence and fame. I opened every new business pitch with it.

After you look at the ads, check out some advertising history from Revolvy.

How To Grow With Linkedin

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Get Heavy With Linkedin

I am looking at Linkedin over the past couple of days and I see a very smart Australian sales/ marketing buddy posting with heavy frequency on LinkedIn. I am like: “What’s Up?”

Here is our quick but valuable discussion.

(SHHH… the secret is Reach & Frequency)

Peter:

Damn. You are cranking out content on Linkedin. Does it work?

Mystery Marketer:

Yes, it does

Was posting three times a day and got little traction

Then increased to six times a day and got more traction.

Now 12 times a day and 24 hours a day and getting a lot of traction.

Big insight is most people on average only check LinkedIn once every 17 days and for no more than 30 minutes.

Therefore while you and I may sit on it every day the audience I want could be coming online at any time so I always have to be there.

12 times a day and 364 days a year (I take Christmas Day off)

And, no piece of content is shared more than three times. 2/3 of the content shared is relevant content from the industry and 1/3 is our own content.

Peter:

Thanks for the info. Agree… action begets leads, interest. Heavy, active marketers can get lost in the thought that their audience is as enthralled with marketing platforms (i.e. Linkedin) as they are.
In my head, it always comes down to the old idea of reach and frequency. This worked for P&G, why not your advertising agency?
And, the idea of running an active business development program fits in with yesterday’s post.

More Linkedin To Come

There are lots of articles about how to use Linkedin but not too many on how to use it to specifically grow your advertising agency. I am going to write more on this subject — and use my own experiences as examples.

Advertising Agency Marketing and Getting Past Sameness

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Beyond Sameness: An Advertising Agency Marketing Objective

This mini-thought-piece is about getting away from the awfulness of advertising agency marketing ‘sameness’.

First of all, of course, all advertising agencies are by nature the same. All dry cleaners are the same. All bars are the same. All optometrists are the same.

All advertising agencies make or deliver ads. Dry cleaners clean clothes, bars serve drinks and optometrists check out your eyes.

However, some agencies get past sameness and stand out from the pack. How do they do that?

How To Leave Sameness Behind?

Sameness sucks, but if you are like me, you do have your favorite dry cleaner (mine looks very modern); bar (mine is on a roof) and optometrist (mine is young and knows the latest methods and speaks English) I live in Mexico.

How can you get your advertising agency away from acting and looking like the agency down the street?

It isn’t by delivering the same message. “We are cool” / “We are smart” / “We know social media” / “We are creative” / “We have nice furniture” / We have a very human culture” / “We know content.”

The way out of this mess (the mess is huge given that there are over 4,000 ad agency-type choices) is to make looking and sounding different a goal. I call it being “Unignorable.”

6 (Easy) Paths To Being Unignorably As IN Un-Same-Ness Advertising Agency Marketing

Get past sameness. Make not being the same, make not being IGNORABLE an agency objective. Here are some things you can do.

  1. Market the hell out of your agency. This means having a super smart plan, a plan that you run 24/7. Good news for you… most agencies do not do this. Just by running a solid business development program, you will be not same-like. How is your outbound program? Your account-based marketing calendar? Your must-read blog? Your Linkedin program? By the way, could you swap out your name and put in another agency and have all of your marketing activity be too same-like — as in not branding you? If so, you are screwed.
  2. Get specialized. Pick something narrow to be known for. What’s available… Think expertise. Be the micro-expertise digital specialist example: Own search engine marketing like HawkSEM. Own data marketing expertise like Delve. Own category expertise like Red Interactive and entertainment.
  3. Own geography. Portland’s Grady Britton is not only one of the oldest agencies in Portland, but it also supports the city. Check out its Portland non-profit grant program.
  4. Own a high-interest demographic. Miami’s Viva owns multi-cultural marketing. Linda Gonzales, its leader, is a recognized expert. She gets the calls from the trade press about anything related to cultural marketing.
  5. Own a personality. The essence of getting past sameness is having a personality. The clients you want, buy people (you are in a people business). Australia’s Tiny Hunter does a couple of things right from the go. First, they tell the market that they specialize in family business marketing. Second, they introduce you to the leadership team right away via a home page video. Tiny Hunter is all about people: the type of client, the client’s customer and the agency leaders. How clear are your agency’s message and personality?
  6. One more. Have a website that isn’t interchangeable with your neighbor agency’s site. And, remember, ask for the order. Your website is a sales tool.

If you make sameness your enemy, you will become unignorable.

 

Best Of 2018

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No, no, don’t worry, I am not going to make a long list of the best of 2018. I am just going to tell you about my best personal experience.

The People

I have been working on a major photography project for a couple of years. As I say on my photography website:

“I am traveling around the world to shoot The People, my long-term portrait series. My ultimate goal is to amass well over one thousand simple portraits that foster empathy and a better understanding of the world and its people. Think visual ethnography. I’ve now made over 330 portraits in Mexico and Selma, Alabama. Next stops are Havana, Cuba, Indonesia, and Argentina.”

I was in Selma Alabama for three weeks in November. I was graciously accepted into the community and took 140 individual portraits. The pre-planning process and working in a new environment is one of the most interesting aspects of the project. I can’t just parachute in and hope that I find the people I want to photograph. I need some local help. For example, my upcoming trip to Havana in February is being set up by a large Cuban family. I’ll arrive having 30 brand-new friends.

I love this stuff.

Ebenezer Missionary Baptist Church

I knew when I headed to Selma that I wanted to photograph members of an African American church. Sure, I know, a stereotype, but, iconic nonetheless. Churches are an important element of any Southern community portrait.

On my second Sunday, Pastor James Perkins, Jr invited me to attend the service at the Ebenezer Missionary Baptist Church. Pastor Perkins had even prepped the congregation that a photographer with a big white background was coming.

I arrived at the church during the sermon. Pastor Perkins was preaching about how we all have different personal “languages” – different ways of communicating. As an example, he mentioned that if the congregation was going to reach out and be meaningful to young people, then the younger members of the congregation needed to be the church’s voice. The older folks simply do not speak the same language as sixteen-year-olds. It was during the sermon that I realized that my “language” is photography. A seemingly obvious, but meaningful revelation. 

As the sermon was ending the lady users put on their white gloves and when the congregation began to sing hymns, the ladies took my hands and held tight.

I began to cry.