Peter Levitan & Co.

The New Business of Advertising

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Merry (Belated) Christmas From Victors & Spoils

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I’m a bit late to the Christmas party but, just found this more-creative-than-the usual-boring agency-Christmas-thing. In this case, its a Christmas video from that agency that so many other agencies that don’t have a point of difference love to hate. Yes, Victors & Spoils has detractors. But, then again, anyone doing anything new gets dumped on by the old guard. Surprisingly, for a “creative” industry like advertising, “new” is scary.

Did Victors & Spoils crowd source the Photoshopping? While you are at it, watch the agency’s descriptive “about” video. It also works. More agencies need to use the power of video to sell, yes, sell, their agency to fickle website visitors.

The Worst Advertising Agency Presentation – Ever

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A Very Sad Story… The Worst Advertising Agency Presentation – Ever

advertising agency presentationThis is a story about the worst advertising agency presentation – ever (I know, I was in it.) It was bad.

This special experience, along with more stories, strong opinions, and brilliant advice (I’ve learned a lot over the years) is in my new book… How To Run A Kick-Ass Advertising Agency.

If you buy the 27-chapter book and read it, I guarantee that you will win more new business, run a tighter ship, and will make more money.

My First Advertising Agency Presentation

Back to the beginning: I won my first pitch in 1984. For the first email service.

I was an account executive at Dancer, Fitzgerald Sample, New York’s largest “Mad Men” era advertising agency (Saatchi & Saatchi bought Dancer in 1987.) The pitch was for Western Union’s $15 million EasyLink Service. EasyLink was the first commercial email service and launched the same year as the IBM PC – the times were changing fast. We won the pitch and I learned how a well-oiled presentation worked from a new business team that won nine out of ten pitches that year. After I began working on the business, I asked the senior client why we won. She stated three reasons: [Read more…] about The Worst Advertising Agency Presentation – Ever

If I Were An Ad Agency Client – I’d Hire Lean Mean Fighting Machine

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I look at lots of ad agency websites. I put them in my agency directory / I look at them because agencies contact me to ask for my help (its amazing how fast you can suss out an agency’s value – like in 7 seconds) and I look at them as if I were a client seeking a new marketing partner.

Most agency websites fail. They are me-too, slow to deliver a message, overloaded, have no personality and don’t sell anything. They are, sadly, 20 years or so after the birth of the graphical browser, dull and oh so boring brochures. So, its so sweet when one comes across an agency  that gets it. And, of course, once again, its the English that have it all figured out.

In this case, its the, of course, lean website from London’s Lean Mean Fighting Machine. Spend time on this website: watch the videos, enjoy the attitude like how they position their blog (“Our Blog: By Employees That Are Forced To Write it”.)

Screen shot 2014-02-07 at 9.49.49 AM

 

Please. Make adjustments to your website. Be different, have fun. Oh, and think sales because, at the end of the very long day, your website should sell (and, if you can, look different that the guy down the street.)

Finally, a sense of humor will go a long way to pre sell. Most clients say that “chemistry” is how they choose an agency.

Advertising Agency Self Promotion #2

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A couple of days ago I wrote about a small advertising program that my Agency Citrus Ralston360 ran 7 years ago. I just took a look at the post and it got me thinking about what else Google had stored in its memory about how we promoted the agency. This led me to an article about a podcasting self promotion we ran for the agency close to ten years ago.

Way back when, I decided that podcasting, because of automated distribution via RSS and inclusion in iTunes, was a platform for the future. If you have been following the world of podcasting, I was both right and wrong. Podcasting is still hot but RSS (Really Simple Syndication) didn’t really take off. Sure, podcasting is out there but the RSS thing was a bit too complicated for most web users. In fact, I think its promise of automated delivery has been taken over by apps. But, that’s another story.

So back in 2000 something, we promoted our expertise in podcasting by 1) having our own marketing interview podcast, Ralston360 View (it had a large following on iTunes); white papers, speaking engagements and a nifty video that was embedded inside an iPod looking gizmo graphic. You spun the interactive FLASH-based dial to select different instructional videos. I wish I still had the videos but they are long gone. This is what it looked like:

360_podcasting

This sweet tool garnered press for the agency and helped us with our very early social media prowess. It burnished our image. We became known for our thought leadership.

I continue to be a major fan of the value of thought leadership when it is targeted to the right audience. I recommend the art of thought leadership as win-win self promotion to my agency clients.

Need some strategic leadership ideas? I’ve got a whole bunch more. Give me a shout.

 

 

 

 

 

Why SlideShare Is A Smart New Business Tool

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According to SlideShare’s 2013 recap, my presentations and white papers were viewed 3,012 times and I uploaded 15 “SlideShares.”

Beyond these general stats, I can’t make a direct correlation between SlideShare and my new business leads. But, I’ll gladly take 3,012 views since I can’t imagine that my advertising industry targeted documents are being viewed casually. I’ll take the inherent branding as a positive.

Given SlideShare’s ease of use and LinkedIn relationship, why wouldn’t you want to add SlideShare to your personal or advertising agency content-based business development program? SlideShare obviously drives message reach. Here is a portion of my personal SlideShare report. You will see an uptick in October. I tested what would happen if I did a bit of promotion on my blog and Twitter feed. It worked. I love the smell of social media synergy in the morning.

Peter levitan s year 2013 on SlideShare

Need More Reasons To Use SlideShare For Advertising Agency New Business

Slideshare is the world’s largest content-sharing community for professionals. Here is how SlideShare puts it on their SlideShare 101 page.

With 60 million monthly visitors and 130 million page views, it is amongst the most visited 200 websites in the world. Besides presentations, SlideShare also supports documents, PDFs, videos and webinars.

Here is another fact. I put up my presentation “24 Advertising Agency Positions For New Business Development” about 3 months ago and it has been viewed by over 900 people. Not too shabby for an easy upload and distribution of an existing presentation. The presentation is a repurposed use of Part III of my series on how to position advertising agencies. Here are other reasons why I use (and love) SlideShare…

  • It’s content marketing, baby.
  • It has that huge audience. According to comScore, SlideShare has 5 times more traffic from business owners than Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn (which now owns SlideShare).
  • SlideShare is primarily a business tool and has deep reach into my advertising industry target market.
  • Google loves SlideShare and SlideShare presentations and PDF’s get indexed immediately.
  • My SlideShare presentations and documents are automatically shared across LinkedIn.

So, without further ado, my “best selling” 2013 SlideShare presentation…

Need some more facts? Here’s an infographic on SlideShare from Column Five Media.

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