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Ad Agency Business Development Trick

Peter · November 21, 2016 · Leave a Comment

My Business Development Trick Interview

I have a business development trick I use when working with my ad agency clients. It’s my easiest and yet most beneficial trick. After some highly intelligent blabbing, I point “my” agencies to a set of benchmark agencies that are directly relevant to my customized business development plan recommendations. These benchmark agencies are perfect examples of how to fine-tune an agency positioning, how to enunciate the positioning, how to do thought leadership, how to be concise, how to actually run a ‘sales’ program that delivers new clients and how to build a website that gets read… as in, not quickly passed by.

One of those benchmark agencies has been London’s LONDON Advertising.

I’ll play the trick for you if you chat me up… and hire me. In the meantime, here is an interview I did with Michael Mosynski the CEO of LONDON Advertising that’s inside my book on winning more ad agency pitches… The Levitan Pitch. Buy This Book. Win More Pitches.

I suspect that there will be some ideas in here, Michael will help you create an agency story (note his simple sales pitch) that drives interest, how to beat mega agencies to win big accounts, how to build interpersonal chemistry and how to win the pitch. Oh, and how to create a simple agency website that sells the agency. Maybe one of the greatest tricks of all.

The LONDON Advertising Interview

Michael Mosynski is CEO of LONDON Advertising. He launched the agency seven years ago as a global agency built for today’s marketplace. The agency’s clients include Boots No7, Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group, Ketel One, W&O Travel, and Wegwood.

Prior to starting LONDON, Michael was the CEO of M&C Saatchi Hong Kong, Middle East, and London’s IS. Prior to joining M&C Saatchi, he held a range of senior positions at Saatchi & Saatchi Advertising Worldwide. We worked together in London.

PL: LONDON Advertising is positioned as an international, yet very nimble one-office agency that that delivers “One Brilliant Idea that can work in any media, anywhere in the world.” Why does this positioning generate interest from multinational clients? [Read more…] about Ad Agency Business Development Trick

Chatbots and Your Advertising Agency

Peter · November 18, 2016 · 1 Comment

Chatbots, Bots, Guest Posting and Your Advertising Agency

Check out my article Why Bots Are the Next Big Frontier for Agencies that was posted this morning on HubSpot’s marketing blog. The article discusses my views on the power of Chatbots, the looming opportunity for advertising agencies to get on this bandwagon and my personal experience running ActiveBuddy, an early Chatbot company.

3 Takeaways

My article offers three big takeaways (I mean immediately actionable takeaways) for your ad agency and its new business program:

Something new for you to talk about. Pay attention to AI and Chatbots. Savvy advertising agencies will jump on this bandwagon. It is real. Why? People like to talk to smart, friendly, uber programmed computers rather than tap out on the keyboard and phone. Oh, and Facebook loves chatbots.
Your skill. Advertising agencies are good at writing or should be. Creating smart Chatbots is all about understanding human communications and writing scripts that recognize how interpersonal communications work. This is what a savvy advertising agency is good at. That savvy agency is also good at building brand to consumer conversations. Believe me, you’ve spent almost 10 years building static apps. Chatbots will unleash your inner conversational bot expertise. This is already in-house.
Reach. I’m sure that you love your agency blog. But, guest posting on a mega website like HubSpot will drive way more incremental reach for your thought leadership, ideas and brand awareness. Why? Alexa tells me that HubSpot is the 529th highest ranked website. Get this, Ogilvy’s website is ranked at only 41,659 — after zillions of years of being in the ad business. Even a smart one at Ogilvy should think about guest posting if she’d like to reach more folks.

On the subject of reach… after only a couple of hours, my post was shared lots. See….

Last point. Here is the video ActiveBuddy made 14 years ago to launch our company. You’ll see that I thought bots were a big fucking idea then. I still do.

Gary Vaynerchuck And His ANA Advertising Rant

Peter · October 22, 2016 · Leave a Comment

Gary Vaynerchuck Tells It Like It Is

I have written about Gary Vaynerchuck and his take on advertising and the industry twice before. Both positive and negative.

Gary Vaynerchuck Is Full Of Shit

Gary Vaynerchuck: Old School Advertising Agency CEO

Today, I’d like to respond to his ‘rant’ (according to Advertising Age) on the advertising industry that he delivered at the Association of National Advertisers Masters of Marketing conference.

Gary’s comments and my perspective follow. Before you start, I’d like to say again that I admire Gary and his brilliant job of building Vayner Media, one of the fastest growing agencies in the business. His built-for-today agency is an example of how to do it right that many agency CEO’s should study.

The Gary Vaynerchuck Annual Rant

On improving creative: “Everyone likes to talk about the media inefficiencies and transparencies, but what about the creative? We have to understand our brands mean different things to different people and the attention of the consumer is shifting at scale. Creative gets elevated when we accept an ecosystem that gives us more creative at bats.”

My Take… Creative at bats. Hmm. OK, I get it. Spread your creativity around the world of media platforms. But, a big but, creativity is not about volume. It is about ideas that arrest and tell brand stories and tidbits that capture attention and excite. Big compelling ideas that drive interest and, yes folks, sell something. Go here to read about the history of the early days of Volkswagen advertising – The best Advertising Ever. It will prove my point.

On the potency of the Super Bowl: “When I buy my first brand, the first thing I’m going to do is run multiple Super Bowl ads,” he said. “The No. 1 underpriced value of attention is the Super Bowl. Every single person watches it, but the problem with the current execution of the Super Bowl is the creative has so much vested interest in being a showcase for agencies … we’re not making the kind of work that takes advantage.”

Another OK. Please, we all get that agencies try to flex their creative muscle when they get a chance to create advertising for the Super Bowl. Guess what, some not so great Executive Creative Directors think first about their reel. Do we really need to here again? OK again… yes, there are lame agencies (occasionally abetted by immature Internet brands) that do this. But, I know that as clients have gotten more focused on selling, the run of silly TV commercials has diminished.

OK again… yes, there are lame agencies (occasionally abetted by immature Internet brands and super nervous marketing directors who might also be building their reels) that do this. But, I know that as clients have gotten more focused on selling, the run of silly Super Bowl TV commercials has diminished.

On measuring marketing: “You’re scoring the wrong shit,” he said. “There’s a new world and attention is in different places. I could care less if Facebook, Instagram or Snapchat exist tomorrow — I just care about where your attention is.”

HUH? Why is Gary talking down to experienced agency leaders and how they measure effectiveness? Oh, this speech is all about selling his agency’s expertise. Bravo to Gary’s salesmanship.

On targeting your audience: “If you are running [TV] commercials for a brand that targets consumers 22 and under, you’re a fuckface.”

Well, why rule out TV? The under 22-year-old crowd does, in fact, watch TV. Not all of it and not clearly (of course, we all know this right?) as much as their dads. But they watch it. Is Gary suggesting that brands should avoid TV – ever? Never consider it a part of the traditional – social – video – outdoor (still going strong) media mix? Not recognize that a bunch of TV is not viewed on the old-fashioned TV set but on the phone? Really, is he saying this? Or just saying that advertisers should talk to him about how fucked up the big agencies are? Again. Remember, Gary is on a sales call to the ANA and Advertising Age has graciously abetted his cause.

On final takeaways: “You’re going to die,” Mr. Vaynerchuk said. “It’s an amazing time to be in this industry if you’re on the offense, it’s the worst time if you’re on the defense and 95% of you are on the defense.”

Duh! This sounds like career advice you give to your 18-about-to-go to college neighbor.

The Best Advertising Ever

Peter · October 22, 2016 · 1 Comment

Volkswagen: The Best Advertising Ever. Period.

Best advertising ever?

OK, one of the best advertising campaigns – ever. No question. This legendary campaign from the Mad Men days and Doyle Dane Bernbach was, well, fucking brilliant. Great strategy, lean approach, super fine copy (read it oh ye content writers), art direction and photography. These ads were impossible to NOT read.

Please watch this video below: “Remember Those Great Volkswagen Ads?” (especially if you are under 40.) Hear the people who made the ads talk about making some of the smartest advertising ever.

Remember, this campaign pitted Volkswagen’s tiny post-war German car against Ford, Chevrolet, and Dodge. Not an easy play. This is a good, free, marketing lesson for us all. Buzzfeed has all of the ads right here.

The BIG Idea

Advertising has gotten a bit too complicated these days. Words like programatic, bots, content, analytics, SEM, funnels, infographics, authentic and on. We can easily forget that is all about the BIG, impossible to ignore, strategic, yet oh so simple… BIG idea. The idea that captures our attention and excites.

Ode to my audience of business development directors: You’ll win more new business if you… Deliver ideas and insights that capture your prospective client’s attention and excite them. AHA! moments just like Volkswagen did.

BIG ideas follow…