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It Might Be Time To Start Your Own Ad Agency

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Yes Folks, You Can Start Your Ad Agency – And Succeed

Screen Shot 2015-09-22 at 8.37.50 PMGreat article in the U.K.’s The Drum from London Advertising’s CEO Michael Moszyinski on what might just happen if you bailed from your ad agency and decided to go out on your own. Sure, it’s scary. Sure, you might not succeed. Sure you are putting your career on the line. Sure you’ll miss the other hundred’s of people you drink with at Ogilvy or Droga5 or 72andsunny.

But, you know you want to do it. You know that you can do a better job than the management of your current agency. You know that you have super special smart ideas that you’d like to share with high-profit clients. You know that your time may be running out. You know that you might even be able to steal one of your clients.

“Confessions of an indie agency start up: Seven years in”

Take a good read of Michael’s agency launch story on The Drum. It will be enlightening, repeat enlightening, and should get your entrepreneurial juices flowing. Here is a brief energizer from London’s history for you to get you packing up… [Read more…] about It Might Be Time To Start Your Own Ad Agency

Anatomy Of An Advertising Agency Pitch: Part Two

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Anatomy Of An Advertising Agency Pitch: Part Two

 

Screen Shot 2015-09-17 at 3.53.33 PMThis is the second part of my interview with Tony Mikes, Founder of the Second Wind Network. It is his first-person perspective on how advertising agencies performed in an pitch for the National Aquarium in Baltimore. It is enlightening and instructive… to say the least.

The interview first appeared in my book, “The Levitan Pitch. Buy This Book. Win More Pitches.”

The interview is over three thousand words so I broke it into two parts. I urge you to read both – part one is here. At the end of the interview, I will give you my impressions on the lessons that every agency can learn from Tony’s experience and insights.

The Anatomy Of An Advertising Pitch Interview

PL: So to be clear, of the six agencies, how many wanted to know who from the client would be in the room?

Tony: Nobody else.

PL: That’s… crazy.

Tony: Yeah, I mean, I think that that’s a sin, maybe not mortal, but that’s certainly a sin. But nobody asked.

PL: Well that’s incredibly surprising considering the importance of making interpersonal connections. What else did the smart agency do that stood out?

Tony: There was a pitch leader, and he occupied the podium. The other three presenters sat on director’s chairs. The leader moderated the whole session. So anything that needed to be stopped or moved or changed or accelerated or decelerated – the leader had control. The leader read the room and controlled the flow.

PL: Did you have a sense that they were well rehearsed?

Tony: Yes. They certainly had rehearsed a lot. They started with a bang – without introductions. Dark room. Killer video. Which ended in a… here we are.

The video lasted about a couple minutes. It was really great.

PL: Was the video about them or about the client? [Read more…] about Anatomy Of An Advertising Agency Pitch: Part Two

How To Win New Business

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Yes, How to Win New Business

me me mistake copy jpegNow, I am not so, um, naive to say that all it takes is to get out there with a compelling message and then go for it. But, guess what… all it really takes is to get out there with a compelling message targeted to the right people at the right time – a message that is unique to your business and is difficult to ignore because it goes right to the heart of an issue that is keeping your prospect up at night.  There, I said it. Let me put it another way and I’ll coin it as…

SSP: Smart Sales Pressure. 

OK, one more piece of advice. We all (and I mean all of us) make mistakes that kill pitches and deals. As you might suspect, being conscious of these mistakes is rather important to avoiding them.

Mistakes.

Here is the poster of the 12 mistakes that I outline in my book. For your viewing (and hopefully humorous) pleasure:

Mistake-Poster-

I Am Worried About The Future Of Advertising

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Screen Shot 2015-09-11 at 11.25.34 AMI put some thoughts on the future of advertising on LinkedIn (a publishing platform that you should consider using for your agency).

I am concerned that the growth of ad blocking software; the shift to mobile where ads simply don’t work (yet) and the reduction of TV viewership by the under 30 crowd does not bode well for TV – which is still the leading advertising medium.

Head over to LinkedIn to see my thoughts. Agencies that crack this new code will win.

By the way, here are my 8 posts on the power of LinkedIn as a B2B marketing tool.

Advertising Agency Names For Your Agency

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Advertising Agency Names and SEO Terms

This is an update to a 2015 post about advertising agency names. Yes, 2015. It was a hit at that time and subsequent blog posts about how to name an advertising agency have done well… as well. Here is an example post (a two-parter) on how to name an advertising agency.

I thought that I’d update this because I took a look at the agency names from some recent award shows – OK, Cannes Lions. I think that names matter:

  • The Monkeys
  • adam&eveDDB
  • GUT
  • SMUGGLER
  • Uncommon Creative Studio
  • Special

Back To Advertising Agency Names From 2015

MemeCenter_1377384243157_38-196x300Before I begin, I just want to apologize for the clickbait headline. Obviously, this headline is silly:

Unbelievable Advertising Agency Names For Your Agency.

But if you hang out on the web these days, you will see clickbait headlines all over – as in ad nauseam (I love the definition: Ad nauseam is a Latin term for a discussion that has continued so long that it has continued “to [the point of] nausea”.) The subject of the proliferation of clickbait, even by major advertisers and publishers – vs. delivering consumer value vs. trickery – is a worthy subject for another post. But, let’s get back to advertising agency names.

SEO

Screen Shot 2015-09-09 at 10.59.19 AMOn the left is a list of some of the top search terms that people have used to wind up on my website. I only include these (and they are a bit wonky, and at best directional, ’cause they are from WordPress stats.) However, it is interesting (well, to me) that it appears that there are a lot of searches for ‘how to name an advertising agency.’ Advertising agency people really dig this subject and they spend hours thinking hard about selecting the perfect name.

They also spend hours thinking that they need to redesign their website. And, many should.

Note: If you read to the bottom, you will see that agency names just might not matter. But, first…

I renamed my ex-agency twice.

I admit it, I’ve been a re-namer too. When I bought my agency in 2002 it was Ralston Group (named after the founder); then we moved to Ralston360 in 2004 (we were becoming more digital and direct responsive.) A few years later we switched to Citrus after we bought the design firm Citrus and expanded our presence in the Portland market. We simply liked their name more than ours (and, as you might expect we also got tired of the 360 thing, 360 got way overused) so we took Citrus on.

What’s Your Agency Name?

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