Peter Levitan & Co.

The New Business of Advertising

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Important Question: Are You Coronavirus Stressed Out?

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Stressed out?

Of course, you are. Since I am not a stress expert (other than having experienced it and solved it). I am NOT going to point out that running an advertising agency or working at one today isn’t fucking high stress. Of course, it is. This is way bad. Bad for your career. Bad for your bank account. Bad for your emotional outlook. Bad for your family and worse – bad for your health. A quote from Healthline:

Anxiety can trigger your flight-or-fight stress response and release a flood of chemicals and hormones, like adrenaline, into your system. … This can weaken your immune system, leaving you more vulnerable to viral infections and frequent illnesses.

The drill is if you are like me, the news is fucking intense. The work environment is intense. This working from home is, kinda not fun after a while and your job is kinda precarious.

Advice — Meditate Now

I will offer my experienced perspective on advertising agency and internet start-up related stress-management-business-guidance soon (I had lovely stress from global agency lunacy, CEOing two internet start-ups and owning my own agency).

In the meantime… I strongly suggest that if you do daily meditation today… At least you SHOULD consider it. Caps for emphasis.

A Mega Tip – How To Meditate!

How to start? Check out the extremely well-reviewed and super downloaded “meditate app” —- Waking Up from Sam Harris. It is the #1 meditate-training app in the app stores. I don’t make a dime from this so please check it out – for my own universal advertising-agency-universe mental health.

Get this app.

Waking Up

That’s it. Do this.

Peter

 

 

 

Dallas Advertising Agencies What Agency Is On Top At Google?

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Why Is Miller Ad Agency On Top At Google? Why The Answer Is Important For All Advertising Agencies No Matter Where Your Agency Is.

I’ve been doing some work for my advertising agency clients about how they get found by their future marketing clients. To narrow the process, I took a look at how Dallas advertising agencies are listed on Goole’s SERP home page.

It isn’t pretty.

Today is a rather important time to check every “how clients find your agency” box given the current state of the COVID-19 craziness and inevitable client spending pullback. If you were not around during the 2007 recession… ask someone who was. The agencies that fell asleep — fell off the map. I owned an agency at the time and got aggressive – we prospered.

Dallas Advertising Agencies And Google

As part of my research, I did a quick search on Google, via a Chrome incognito browser, to see what Austin, Houston and Dallas advertising agencies are listed first on Google (of course YMMV, depending on your browser and history). I did a fast search as if I was a prospective client searching for a new agency. My search term was simple… “Dallas advertising agencies.”

Here is a screenshot of the results. Kinda critical results for future clients as Google only provides a very limited list on page one.

Dallas Findings

  1. WALO Creative comes up first. They are smart to buy the ad to get out ahead given that Clutch says that there are over 500 Dallas advertising agencies.
  2. Miller Ad Agency is second. They have 75 reviews, so I assume that that helps Google make a decision. However, Slingshot with five reviews is listed as four. So, maybe the number of reviews isn’t the secret.
  3. Finally, I am going like, where is Dallas’ leading Richards Group? They are not on page one. Huh, given their size and history. This time I searched via Google map and Richards shows up as number 4. This makes sense, right? But, again, I am a bit perplexed since smaller Miller is number one.
  4. A “conclusion”. Miller has all five-star reviews as is listed at 5.0. Richards has lots of reviews but because it has a couple of lower review numbers has a 4.5 rank. But wait, Slingshot which is listed as number two only has a 3.4 review rank. Yikes.

My Conclusion… Find a seriously smart, expert SEM / SEO expert and drill down if you want to be listed high on Google’s results for Dallas Advertising Agencies.  Maybe start at Google’s Improve Your Local Ranking On Google page. Keep reading – Google’s algorithms are fluid.

One more… make knowing where a prospective client will look for your agency and make sure you are there. If it means that you might have to buy an ad or a listing, do it. The way to get here is to put on a client hat and understand their buyer persona and act like them. Or, have your mom do the search.

Also, check out my article about there being too many advertising agencies. I also have a list of everywhere you want to be.

Note: If your superior expertise can help ME figure this specific Google ranking stuff out…. make contact. Thanks.

 

 

 

Are There Too Many Advertising Agencies?

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Lots. Like, Um, Too Many.

So… How many advertising agencies are there? OK, it is a bit impossible to count them all – and I am talking essentially every type of agency from Ogilvy down to your ex-Creative Director that does what he used to do for you but now he works (at a lower cost) out of his home.

So, how many? Here is a number I came across yesterday…

According to Clutch there are 17,532 “Top Advertising and Marketing Agencies” In the United States. 17,532.

Yikes. Want more? There are 193 in Dallas, 182 in Austin and 140 in Houston. That’s 515 in major Texas cities. Did I say Yikes? Now, imagine how many in London.

Here are some links to help y’all break out of the pack.

How Clients Find An Advertising Agency.

What Do Advertising Clients Want? I Asked A Real Mad Man.

A link to my enormous ad agency information blog. 

Five Immediate Things To Do To Break Out From The 17,532…

  1. Make sure you are everywhere a client might look to find your agency. Buy attention if you have to.
  2. Run a smart 24/7 business development program. Sorry, referrals are not enough.
  3. Have a competitive and distinctive brand positioning. Being an expert in something might help (actually, it will help a lot.)
  4. Try to look and act unignorable. Good news” your competitors are already ignored given the vast number of agency choices.
  5. Just hire me to help you grow awareness, leads, and closes. LOL. I am not kidding.

So, how many advertising agencies are in your market? Just to be outrageously obnoxious, a Google search on “Tulsa advertising agencies” turned up 2,820,000 results.

The Advertising Agency Of The Future

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What Does The Advertising Agency Of The Future Look Like? How About Your Agency?

The advertising agency of the future needs some serious planning and agility. No surprise here. But, what is surprising to me is the lack of attention paid to how to craft an advertising agency for the future.

Just for the hell of it. I’ll start with the good old days.

My first job in advertising was at Dancer Fitzgerald & Sample. Back in the 1980’s DFS was New York’s largest advertising agency. We were sweetly based in the iconic Chrysler Building. At that time, we did not spend lots of gray matter on thinking about the future of the advertising agency business because we were making a 15% commission on media and 16.5% on production. We had a sweet client list that included General Mills, P&G, RJR Nabisco, Sara Lee, Northwest Airlines (I ran the account and our annual profits were $6 million on $9 million in revenues), HP and Toyota. As you might expect, we were not too concerned about reinvention. All this client and revenue firepower helped Saatchi & Saatchi love and buy Dancer in 1986.

Today advertising is a radically different business and ad agencies need to be thinking about how to be positioned for a future where multi-year AOR clients; 15% media commissions; three primary media types (TV, print, radio); a positive global network effect and loyalty are attributes of the past.

Not to get too down, but today the advertising world is about project work, crazy price consciousness, competition from all sides (large consultancies, in-house agencies and your ex-Creative Director who does just fine as a freelancer).

Bummed Out?

Look, for many agencies, it is kinda fucked up out there. As the famous Chinese curse says,

“May you live in interesting times”.

But, but, there are still agencies that grow and make bucks. You can too.

So, in preparation for this blog post – yes, it is ultimately about how to position your agency for the future – I read a bunch of articles on “the advertising agency of the future.” Not too surprising, this is a hot topic.

Interesting (as in ‘Uh Oh’) the first page of Google has articles on your future from traditional agency killers like Deloitte, Accenture, Adobe, CMO.com (an Adobe site).

The agency industry perspective is not on Google’s page one. It isn’t until page two that Inc., AdAge, The Drum and the ANA get to chime in.

I stopped trying to find an actual advertising agency perspective delivered via this search term by the time I got to page four. Do the big guys (even WPP, Publicis, Omnicom, etc.) not want to discuss the future?

Some Findings On The Future on Advertising

Here are some of the highlights from my research. I’m listing these in random order. I’ll have my personal thoughts a bit later. [Read more…] about The Advertising Agency Of The Future

Three Powerful Advertising Agency Quotes

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Here Are Three Advertising Agency Quotes To Help You Focus On Business Development

Mario Andretti

The first quote is from Mario Andretti. Andretti won races in Formula 1 (a world champion), NASCAR, IndyCar (three-time champion), and World Sportscar Championship. This is a serious dude. The quote is intended to kick you in your ass.

“If everything seems under control, you are just not going fast enough.”

Here is the deal. OK, one of the deals. Virtually every advertising agency will have one or more clients walk out the back door this year. The only way you counteract that inevitable loss is to work hard, work smart, act fast to get new clients coming in the front door.

General Eric Shinseki

This quote about embracing change is from the 34th Chief of Staff of the Army and four-star General Eric Shinseki.

“If you dislike change, you’re going to dislike irrelevance even more.”

I know I do not have to point out the speed of change in the advertising industry. What I am pointing out is that you better pay attention to change and be ready to act. Need an example? When your client asks about Tik Tok you better be able to have that conversation.

Peter Levitan

This advertising agency quote is from the most experienced business development consultant. Me.

“Advertising agency marketing programs have to be ‘unignorable’. This must be a primary agency objective. The alternative to unignorabilty is being ignored.”

I consider that one of my key jobs, when I work with my advertising agency clients, is to provide actionable and unignorable ideas and tactics that bring the agency’s brand positioning to life. I am not into pontificating. My goal is to help you make the agency stand out from the ever-growing competitive pack so that that the agency sells in its core sales proposition. And, if you do it right, you will become famous as well.