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2 Pieces Of Advice For Ad Agency CEO’s

Peter · April 29, 2013 · Leave a Comment

The big idea is that your agency should be making things — for yourselves (and your clients.) It is simply too easy and you have the brains, talent and energy. What’s more, you will walk the design talk. One idea is futuristic and the other is simply something you should be doing anyway.

Here are two ideas.

1. Learn 3D Printing

Buy a 3D printer, experiment and be much smarter and on the ball than all the other agencies in your town.

My suggestion is buy the the soon to be released Form 1 from Formlabs. As Formlabs says,Form 1 is…”An end-to-end package. Printer, software, and post-processing kit that just works. Right out of the box.” Check out their video.

$3,300 puts you right in the middle of the 3D printer explosion. And, its so damned beautiful. Put it on that expensive front desk that really does zero for your agency’s street cred. Go here if you need to geek out on this big idea.

Make Some Tee Shirts

It’s summer. Need I say more?

I have a few more ideas. Most are about how you can make more money. Now, that’s a cool thing for an advertising agency to make.

The Six Second Advertising Agency C/O Vine

Peter · April 19, 2013 · Leave a Comment

Advertising agencies ask…. “How can we look / sound / act different that the other 4,000 agencies?” Well, why not become the “Six Second Agency”?

Business Insider reports that “Nissan Says A 6-Second Vine Might Have Been Better Than Its 30-Second Commercial”

Would certain commercials be better if they were condensed into 6-second Vine videos?

In October 2012, Nissan released a TV spot in which a mid-level accounts guy gets mistaken for a high ranking executive after he gives his boss a ride in his Sentra.

Then a consumer edited the 30-second ad down to six.

Nissan then posted on Vine, “Hey @ellencmayfield you’re on to something. Maybe we only needed 6 secs of airtime for the Carpool ad. :)”

I wouldn’t be surprised if the six-second Vine got more attention that the TV commercial. Why?

Vine is still new so any Vine TV spot will get extra attention until advertisers overwhelm us with this type of advertising.
We are collectively way ADD. Six seconds is good.
Advertising effectiveness wasn’t hurt when TV spots went from :60 to :30 to :15’s.

Back To The Six Second Agency Idea

Here is what I’d do if I still had my agency:

Create a micro-department and call it The Six Second Agency.
Create 5 Vine spots.
Build a simple website.
SEO the hell out of it.
Make some noise… go get some PR.

If it works, great. If not, hey you just had some inexpensive fun, your employees will think you are cool and your clients (at least the savvy ones) will smile and be glad that they are working with such a smart agency.

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There is a 78% chance that you loved what you just read. So, go here, read my Corleone offer and call me if you are an agency CEO or want to be someday.

Are Ad Agency Creatives More Creative When Drunk?

Peter · April 1, 2013 · Leave a Comment

The fabulous Advertising Week Social Club blog asked, “Do You Think Alcohol Makes You More Creative? We’re Putting It To The Test.” As Dave Birss writes…

There’s lots of anecdotal evidence that indicates a couple of drinks can help you creatively. For example, the first piece of copy I ever wrote was produced with the assistance of several pints of Guinness. It ran without any client amends and ended up winning a best copy award. (Conversely, a journey along the Absinth shelf almost got me fired for starting a fight with an Account Director!)

Then in the late 90s a spirit of temperance swept across adland in the UK. And at the same time creative standards seemed to drop. A lot of people suspect there’s some connection there.

As someone who went to art school, started in the New York advertising business in the fueled 1980’s, worked with dozens of creatives around the world and now lives in Oregon, home of craft beers and legalized drugs, I’d have to say that creatives…. Well, I won’t. But watch this video and stay tuned for the results.

Wexley School For Girls: Advertising Agency Of The Week

Peter · March 20, 2013 · 3 Comments

Did you hear the one about the ad agency? Probably not. There isn’t much humor in the ad biz. An advertising (or digital or PR) agency with a sense of humor is as rare as a Sasquatch sighting. Believe me. I’ve looked at hundreds of agency websites. But, but, check out the Wexley School For Girls.

FYI: This was written in 2013. Sadly Wexley School For Girls closed. Word on the street is that most of the Wexleyittes moved to Panama. I have not changed the post’s tense (as in today vs. yesterday to protect the innocent).

But, Seattle’s Wexley School For Girls has delightfully stared down the idea that dull is a positive agency attribute. Wexley has built a strong business around the idea of quirky plus sound strategic thinking plus compelling execution. This formula has netted them a very sweet client roster that recognizes that boring is boring and boring doesn’t cut it in a world where consumers / viewers now control the advertising experience.

How Funny?

Lets start with the name Wexley School For Girls. In a world of agency initials, founder names, cute names (I admit to this, my agency was called Citrus) and names that are so random and universal that it takes five minutes to find the agency on Google (go find Breakfast.) In me-too name-land, Wexley stands way out.

As Seattle Weekly reported in 2007:

“The name,” jokes the 40-year-old Ian Cohen, “came from a group of nuns in Wexleyshire, England. They were cantaloupe farmers with a holistic approach to their garden.” Advertising Age put Wexley first on its 2006 list of favorite agency names; the company beat out Tokyo Plastic, 86 the Onions, and Acne.”

Attitude?

“We really kind of want to be ridiculous, and it seems ridiculous that you could actually do business in this building,” says Cal McAllister, whose company does business with Nike, Microsoft and ESPN and others. “I think overall that Wexley is funny, but it’s not a joke.”

Agree, Wexley is funny / different in a world of ad agencies that barely register any sense of brand differentiation.

This attitude is carried across all the agency’s brand messaging.

Here are some shots of Wexley’s Seattle office.

Twitter.

Wexley’s Twitter profile reads like an effective online dating profile and why not? Even prospective clients are looking for an “interesting date.”

@Wexley Advertising agency filled to the brim with incredibly creative, attractive, cut, cut, buff, ridiculously gifted, yet humble and gorgeous people. Everywhere. And in Seattle.

On to the agency’s LinkedIn profile, which now adds a strong direct / social sales proposition (other than their buffness) by introducing the idea of Fan Factory.

Wexley is a fan factory. We take your money and turn it into thousands, tens of thousands, millions of thousands of crazy people. We can create them. We can reinvigorate them. We will deliver them. Fans that stay for a lifetime of loyalty, with the spending and championing that comes with it.

Our biggest value as an advertising agency is not just getting fans in the door, but earning and sustaining their fanship over the long haul by entertaining them time and time again. As they hold you in their hearts and minds and on the tips of their tongues, we engage them in ways you can imagine and others you cannot. It’s pretty simple, really.

And, YouTube.

Wexley continues to drive their brand mantra across YouTube and supports it with work that would not come out of stodgyville. Wexley has 64 videos up. Well over the agency average (vs., just for the hell of it, Droga5’s 54.). Take a look at this video for otherwise stodgy Microsoft’s Window Phone. And, note that it’s close to 1 million views.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PitGqCeJF8c

And, Facebook.

Hello there. FYI: Facebook was our idea in the mid 90’s and even though Al Gore created the internet, we thought of the phrase, “Information Super Highway.” So, yeah, you’re welcome people of the internet.

The Wexley School For Girls Website?

Not a me-too site. Here is an early version. Simple, to put it mildly. The soundtrack made it — maybe. Well, it always made me need to click through. So, it acted as an audio CTTSTM thing (I just made that up… CTTSTM = click-through-to-stop-the-music.)

Today? Click around the golf balls (marketing directors like golf balls) to see work for: ESPN, Microsoft, Oberto, Rainier, Taco del Mar, and Wilson.

Once you’ve seen the work and heard the story, Wexley sends you to a contact page that actually seeks contact and makes the hard to resist offers of, “If you want to hire us and make yourself rich and famous call:” There is even a humorous message for job seekers if you want to move on from your not so funny agency.

A caveat… I mentioned Wexley to an agency friend. She thinks that they, and the way they talk about themselves, might register as being a bit too full of themselves. OK, I can see where she is coming from — and yes not being too full is a Northwest attitude red flag. But, ALL agencies are full of themselves. In this case, it’s nice to see an agency that at least knows how to express its ego and use it as a sales proposition.

Do You Need A New Name? One As Good As Wexley School For Girls?

Here is how to name an advertising agency.