Search Results for: pitch

Does Your Advertising Agency Fear Fear?

Peter · June 14, 2020 · Leave a Comment

Fear Can Be A Great Motivator In The World Of Advertising. Or, It Can Be Debilitating. Pick One.

The feeling of “fear” can be a part of everyday life at many advertising agencies. Fear of losing a valuable client; fear of not winning a new business pitch; fear of slow growth; fear of not being able to sell in that great idea; fear for your job or slow career growth… I’ll stop there.

Fearless Don Tolep discusses advertising agency fear. But more importantly, how to overcome fear to win.[buzzsprout episode=’3975791′ player=’true’]

Don has won lots of new clients and pitches and Tellys. He is a master at business development. He lives near the beach. OK, but better, he is the Creative Brand Strategist at Florida’s OGK Creative. He grows his clients and grows the agency. A good combo.

SHOW LINKS

Don Tolep On LinkedIn

OGK Creative

A nice thing for me… Feedspot has already recognized Advertising Stories as being a top 15 advertising podcast.

Do Not Forget To Subscribe to Advertising Stories Whenever you Listen To Podcasts. Please Tell Your Advertising Friends.

My Story

Me Today

Much of my current brain is building out a 2026 project in China…. “Buying Happiness”. An ethnographic book and digital project about the Chinese consumption economy. This leverages my global photography.

Speaking of photography. You might like my cannabis series at: Potlandia/Jointlandia.

OK, back to business.

I wrote the best-selling books: The Levitan Pitch. Buy This Book. Win More Pitches. and How To Build A Kick-ass Advertising Agency.

I know more about the art and science of advertising agency business development than any other human. My programs deliver a detailed strategic plan sandwiched between efficient branding and messaging programs that are designed to make your agency unignorable. Talk to me.

Oh, and I also wrote a book about Baby Boomers and two photo books about the cannabis industry — Portlandia and Jointlandia.

Me In 20 Seconds

During 16 years at Saatchi & Saatchi Advertising Worldwide, I ran business development across Europe and the USA was EVP Management Director in London and New York, and was GM of the Minneapolis office.

From 2002 to 2012, I owned Citrus Advertising in Portland and Bend Oregon. Clients included Nike and the U.N.

I was CEO and a founder of two major Internet startups during the dot-com boom. Advance Publication’s New Jersey Online was an early leader in online news, and the intelligent bot company ActiveBuddy was sold to Microsoft in 2006.

I am a New York native. I now live in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.

Me In 2 Minutes

I went to the San Francisco Art Institute to study photography. That led to SF’s Levitan & Feinstein Photography. Our clients included San Francisco Magazine, Robert Mondavi Winery, Sonus, and Visa.

I joined New York’s largest Mad Men agency Dancer Fitzgerald Sample Advertising in 1980. DFS had golden clients that included P&G, Nabisco, General Mills, Hanes, Wrangler, Toyota, and HP. One of my clients invented email.

Saatchi & Saatchi bought DFS in 1986 while I was running the Minneapolis office and the global Northwest Airlines account. I started to buy English suits. I won EFFIES that delivered sales from content marketing. This was content before we called it content.

I moved to Saatchi’s London office in the 90s as European Director, business development director, and managed Johnson & Johnson and other accounts across Europe. I bought more English suits.

I discovered early-stage digital marketing when I returned to New York in 1995. After AOL’s President Ted Leonsis told me to “get the fuck out of advertising”, his exact words, I left the agency to invent the online newspaper industry for the third largest newspaper group and Conde Nast. The Newspaper Association of America named me its New Media Pioneer.

In 2000, I founded the startup ActiveBuddy, raised $30 million, and lead the world of natural language bots. Our SmarterChild bot had over a trillion Instant Messenger conversations across AOL, MSFT, and Yahoo. Microsoft bought the technology in 2006.

I moved to Bend and Portland Oregon in 2002 and bought the ad agency Citrus. Our clients included Nike College and MLB AOR programs; multiple banks; healthcare accounts including the five-state Providence: hospitality accounts including Harrah’s Casinos; the Montana Lottery; Seaswirl Boats and LegalZoom. We delivered national and uber local advertising.

I sold Citrus in 2014. I’ve bought and sold three agencies. I know the art of buying and selling agencies.

I have spoken at the 4A’s, the ANA, Newspaper Association of America, Hubspot, Radio Advertising Bureau, international and regional advertising orgs, and recently at marketing universities across India.

What I am Doing Now

I counsel and coach advertising, digital, and PR agencies worldwide on how to build kick-ass business development programs and be UNIGNORABLE.

I wrote How To Build A Kick-Ass Advertising Agency and The Levitan Pitch. Buy This Book. Win More Pitches. I have over 1,000 blog posts on business development. Over 3,00,000 views.

I toggle between San Miguel de Allende, Mexico’s coolest city, and the USA.

This is from a few years ago. I know more about advertising than Donald Trump. That’s not a difficult thing to say. I hope that you find this as funny as I do. Even Obama thought it was funny.

Make Contact

Adidas And Saatchi – The Worst New Business Presentation Ever Podcast

Peter · June 4, 2020 · Leave a Comment

Here Is My Story About The Worst New Business Presentation Ever by Saatchi & Saatchi And Adidas.

This is one of the worst advertising stories I’ve ever participated in. In the early 1990s, I was the European Bussiness Development Director in Saatchi & Saatchi Advertising Worldwide’s London office. One day Maurice Saatchi asked me to run a pitch for the global Adidas account.

[buzzsprout episode=’3940412′ player=’true’]

We had everything working for us. Maurice and Charles Saatchi, a team of London’s best creatives, an Adidas CEO who loved us, the support of Adidas America. Unfortunately, we also had some baby seals that were beaten on ice flows as a creative metaphor that illustrated our global strategy. Baby seals and Adidas and Saatchi did not mix well.

Check out this story if you want to learn about huge pitch mistakes that were made by the best in the business. The blog version of this advertising story has been read over 13,000 times and it is a central story in my book: The Levitan Pitch. Buy This Book. Win More Pitches.

SHOW LINKS

The Worst Presentation Mistakes

The Levitan Pitch. Buy This Book. Win More Pitches.

A nice thing for me… Feedspot has already recognized Advertising Stories as being a top 15 advertising podcast.

Do Not Forget To Subscribe to Advertising Stories Wherever You Listen To Podcasts

Advertising Agency Podcast Guide

Peter · May 6, 2020 · 2 Comments

I launched a new advertising podcast = Advertising Stories (you can listen to it everywhere). So, why not create a quick advertising agency podcast guide based on my research? Here you go.

FYI: My last podcast series which, I did for my own Portland Oregon agency, faded away in 2008. Ya think I was too early for the podcast market?

Advertising Stories is designed to be entertaining and filled with teachable moments. The keyword is entertaining. Entertaining for you advertising and marketing folks – and, frankly, anyone that just likes a good story from the good old days (or today).

Oh, if you do not get my email newsletter – sign up on the left and you will automatically know when I launch my podcast.

A Quick – Advertising Agency Podcast Guide

There are 213,000 results for the Google search “Podcast Guide” so I am not going into big detail here. I’ll just point you to some of my thinking and the resources I’ve found. [Read more…] about Advertising Agency Podcast Guide

The Basics: An Advertising Agency New Business Plan

Peter · April 20, 2020 · 2 Comments

Your 2020 Advertising Agency New Business Plan

I admit it. I am going to repeat myself (you’ll know it if you’ve read some of my 600+ blog posts). The marketing communications service industry must have a solid advertising agency new business plan to survive in today’s disrupted and lower margin marketing world.

Wha? Agencies do not have a solid plan? According to ad world research, most do not. I’ve seen stats that say only 40% of advertising agencies have solid active business development plans.

While repeating some of the core tenets of sales, I’ll add some new thinking based on my working with agencies in the USA and around the globe.

Be Unignorable.

That said, the bottom-line for building a productive advertising agency new business plan is to do the sales plan actions that are tried and true – with the objective of standing way out. That means having the goal of being unignorable. Not easy, but a ripe goal to pursue.

Start Here.

These actions are general sales actions that are modified for selling a highly competitive service like your advertising agency. By the way, congrats if you’ve gone beyond just offering a service to having a tool or system that you can resell. Give me a shout and I’ll show you examples of what I mean.

You have to break out of the competitive pack. I don’t care if you’re a two-person or a multi-national. You need to say something to a prospective client that stands out and makes them want to make direct contact or say yes when you ask to speak with them.

The agencies that win today deliver messaging that is: well-targeted, succinct and competitive.

Because of this starting point, distinctive agency positionings help clients to quickly recognize the agency’s expertise and value.

I’ve put “winner” agencies into three messaging buckets. They tell prospective clients: ‘what we do’, ‘how we do it’ and ‘who we do it for’ to illustrate the strength of their individual positioning strategy.

The Start Here is without question your agency’s positioning. [Read more…] about The Basics: An Advertising Agency New Business Plan