Peter Levitan & Co.

The New Business of Advertising

Search Results for: pitch

Facebook Begins Big Advertising Blitz To Tout Its New Android “Home”

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Wieden+Kennedy (like who else) launches new TV for Facebook Home. As usual, a sweet TV spot. But, am I the only person that does not need to be digitally connected to all of my friends all of the time? I guess it dosen’t matter when you are starting with a user base of 1.06 monthly users.

The social network is using a combination of ads on its own site and TV commercials to pitch its new Facebook Home software.

Read more from the source: allthingsd.com

The World’s Fastest Agency: Advertising Agency Of The Week

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Either bull shit or brilliant. We’ll see. But, what it is… is…. f*cking smart. In our world of ad and digital agency sameness, same agency services, pitch, cute names, social media “expertise”, we now have the World’s Fastest Agency. An “idea” agency with a differentiated brand proposition — and edge. How refreshing.

The drill: Deliver services in our world of instant marketing by building a network of creatives that delivers rapid turnaround marketing. Rapid? You remember the Oreo Super Bowl real-time marketing event. Rapid as in virtually instant. Here is what the World’s Fastest Agency says about themselves in a press release:

World’s Fastest Agency is a new kind of marketing and communications agency.

From briefing to a creative solution within 24 hours, WFA helps time-pressured clients keep pace with the lightning fast 24/7 global media and social culture.

Clients can say goodbye to 100-page PowerPoint decks, meetings, weeks of fee negotiation, countless emails, more meetings, lunch, meetings, scope of work to-ing and fro-ing, meetings, more emails, Q&A sessions, tissue meetings, inaudible conference call, pitch, feedback, feedback on the feedback, re-briefing, re-pitching, another meeting, more feedback, focus groups, another meeting, more emails….

And on their website they offer this compelling promise:

WFA helps time-pressured clients keep pace with the lightening fast 24/7 global media and social culture.

Here is the process and, yes folks, pricing.

Note that they are inexpensive at $999 and fast. Two of those three things that clients want. The other? Great work. My bet is that guys are smart enough to be able to deliver all three. The Holy Grail!

Welcome to the World s Fastest Agency

 

 

 

 

 

See other Advertising Agency of the Week thoughts here.

Let’s not start at “no thanks.” I really can help. I know it.

How? Let me start with a quick story.

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My office at Saatchi & Saatchi Advertising’s London HQ belonged to Maurice Saatchi before he and Charles moved to more palatial digs across town. I’ve got to admit: sitting in what was once the epicenter of Saatchi’s global empire was pretty damn inspiring. One day, ECD Jeremy Sinclair, Maurice and I were sitting in my office working on a pitch. Suddenly, Maurice stopped talking, looked around, turned to Jeremy and said, “Boy, we made a lot of bad decisions in this office.”

Maurice’s honesty was a revelation. Building a major agency, even one as successful as Saatchi, wasn’t without its mistakes.

Growing your agency probably isn’t a slam-dunk either. You may need a major course correction. Or you may need a few intelligent tweaks to your business development plan. In either case, I can help you make the right decisions to move your agency forward, upward and onward. And, really, isn’t that what it’s all about?

So, before you bail out. Why not talk?

A Corleone offer.

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Let me make you an offer you can’t—or rather, shouldn’t—refuse.

Let’s meet for fifteen minutes—just 0.25 on the timesheet— to discuss how I could help you plan for growth. Think of me as a catalyst or a consigliore.

Best case: You’ll realize I can help you take your business to the next stage. Worst case: You walk away with at least one business-building insight.

It’s an offer that even the Don would admire.

LET’S TALK:

1-541-419-2309 (Pacific Time Zone)

Email: peter@peterlevitan.com

Skype: peterlevitan2

Twitter: @peterlevitan

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/peterlevitan

Like hard copy? Here is a handy and informative Fact Sheet.

Advertising Agency New Business: Instagram

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My earlier post, “From Traditional To Digital To Integrated To Social To Instagram”, on the advertising blog AdPulp took a look at the New York agency The Mobile Media Lab. As I noted in the post, this agency describes themselves as… “The Mobile Media Lab is a creative agency that produces customized visual experiences with brands and their audiences on Instagram and other social media channels.”

Here is an agency that isn’t worried about finding a niche and owning it. They are not trying to be everything to everybody. Their visual marketing specialty has netted them some famous clients including Evian, Puma, Samsung and W Hotels. Accounts most agencies would love to have. Accounts that a “full-service” Boston agency might have some trouble winning.

Clearly, Mobile Media Lab successfully tapped into a growing marketing area where big-name clients want expertise.

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When I’ve discussed the visual marketing specialty with agency colleagues, they expressed concerns about The Mobile Media Lab’s narrow focus and limitation of tools like Instagram. I have a different perspective. Yes, visual marketing is a tightly focused approach. But, the use of Instagram and Pinterest is skyrocketing and why couldn’t even a large “full-service” agency build a micro-group around niche visual marketing to get new business interest? Just like The Mobile Media lab, another agency just might get the attention of brands that would have never given them a look. Visual marketing is something that can be pitched and should generate interest from sophisticated clients.

Is there any reason that you couldn’t take a niche play to quickly become an expert in a new marketing category? Advertising agency niche markting could be your ticket into the national marketing arena. I’ll soon write about some of the other niches that can be exploited.

1,247th Blog Post On Advertising Agency Social Media

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There are over 177,000,000 results for the search phrase “advertising agency social media” on Google. There are now whole industries based on social media advice. So, in the interest of piling on… I’m about to add one more blog post on social media and advertising.

But, before I start, lets make sure we agree on what social media is. Here is a concise definition from Dictionary.com that includes the critical object of increasing sales.

Web sites and other online means of communication that are used by large groups of people to share information and to develop social and professional contacts: Many businesses are utilizing social media to generate sales.

Just in case you are still wavering about how much effort to put into social media…

Here are 17 reasons that ad agencies should use social media as a new business tool.

  1. When managed systematically, the strategic use of social media will drive inbound attention for your agency.
  2. Social media will support your agency positioning and drive awareness of your thought-leadership.
  3. Social media is relatively easy to create and manage. If your mother can do it, you can do it too.
  4. Social media is easier to update than your agency website.
  5. There are lots of platforms to choose from: Twitter, blogs, Pinterest, Facebook, LinkedIn, G+, YouTube, Wikipedia and SlideShare. Each has unique strategic benefits and workload — choose carefully. More are coming.
  6. You will have a corporate LinkedIn page as another agency marketing platform. All of your employees will link to it.
  7. You will use social platforms for direct marketing. For example, you will use twitter’s “@” to directly contact client prospects.
  8. All social platforms, like your blog and Twitter, will be seamlessly linked together for efficiency and traffic generation.
  9. Social Media is integral to the agency SEO program. After only one month, my Pinterest advertising agency website directory is appearing on the first page of Google results.
  10. You will learn to use social media analytics to continuously improve your programs.
  11. You will stay up to date with the evolving state of mobile social media.
  12. Your strategic use of social media will help you look like an expert to your clients. You will walk the talk.
  13. Do social right and you will generate positive case histories based on your expertise. I’m building a case right now for my Pinterest strategy.
  14. You will use social to do agency and client research. Twitter remains an untapped resource for following news on perspective clients.
  15. You will use social media to better understand a potential client’s online audience and brand perception.
  16. Your social media expertise will make you will look smarter in pitches.
  17. You will undoubtedly use your social media expertise to create award-winning programs like Projector’s Facebook work for Intel.

All is not rosy. Here are 7 reasons not to use social media.

  1. Agency senior management does not really get it – at all.
  2. Your agency is not capable of making an adequate time and intellectual commitment to marketing via social media.
  3. You don’t have one or more people dedicated to owning the social program and its on-going success.
  4. You will be inconsistent. You really don’t want to be the agency with 4-month-old Tweets.
  5. You won’t make the effort to integrate your social media program into you agency marketing plan.
  6. You think that all you have to do is a little bit of social media and you’ll quickly get lots of incoming calls from prospective clients.
  7. You don’t have a distinctive agency positioning, message or voice to promote. Me-too messaging won’t make a dent in this space.
  8. You won’t stand out. Just take a look at how few advertising or digital agency blogs are on Ad Age’s Power 150 list of influential blogs.

So, what is my bottom line?

I’ve used social media since the 1990’s to grow companies (online newspapers) and website traffic (over 20 million users for my SmarterChild Instant Messaging bot.) However, like any effective new business tool, the use of social media must be strategic, linked to an expertise-based content strategy, be targeted and needs at least weekly oversight. Do this… and social media will work for you.

Give me a shout. I can help.