ad agency

One Reason Not To Do Advertising Agency New Business

Peter · July 22, 2014 · Leave a Comment

OK, I admit it. I am fibbing.

There is no reason that an advertising agency shouldn’t always be executing some form of business development activity. While you might want to slow down on outreach during the summer (but, keep those monthly emails going out), there is no reason that you shouldn’t be thinking and planning hard for the fall. You want to get out of the blocks fast. The reason is that your prospective clients are going to spend more marketing dollars in 2014 and 2015, and you want to get some of those bucks.

You would like some of that $180.12 billion, right?

Me and New Business

In my case, in the past few weeks, I have slowed down the number of blog posts, guest posts and LinkedIn activity that I have been sending out. People still find me via SEO but I am not actively stimulating the conversation at my usual pace.

Why? I am finishing my book and its marketing plan. Here is what is close to the final cover. I am getting psyched. It will be a very valuable book (If, I do say so myself) packed with my insights from thirty years of pitching and over twenty interviews with pitch experts of all stripes.

Get The Book Early

I guarantee that you will be able to deliver more successful new business pitches earlier and faster than the agency down the street.

Advertising Creative Awards and Puffy Heads

Peter · July 14, 2014 · Leave a Comment

Ireland Is Now Famous For Three Heads: Guinness. Red. And, Creative.

Advertising agencies love creative awards. In fact, these little sweet proof-that-we-are-very-way-smart-and-cool puppies tend to make creative heads get all sorts of puffy. I’ve been seeing this in action for years and love it all-night-long when MY agency’s creative department wins.

Take a look at Dublin’s Mark and Paddy’s take on those puffy heads for (as Mark and Paddy say):

ICAD is Ireland’s preeminent creative body.
This is what their awards do to creative departments.

Here’s a print ad.

Make sure you see the videos on the Mark and (yes) Paddy website.

Advertising Agency Pitch Book Update

Peter · July 9, 2014 · 1 Comment

A Quick Update On My Advertising Pitch Book

People are banging down my door to get their copies of my book on pitching. LOL-Not. Well, they might be when it gets published (later this summer) and the word gets out. Again, a bit of LOL.

The book will be about 60,000 words, has a few deep interviews with experts (search consultants, the 4A’s, the ANA, an IP lawyer and more) and has a list of pitch mistakes garnered from a range of USA and beyond agency search consultants and… Because I really like to point out mistakes, the book has a series of 12 cartoons that highlight what I think are the most egregious mistakes agencies make when pitching. These are mistakes that all agencies make at some point. I try to make these errors go away by telling you that if you want to loose your pitch, then go ahead and make them.

Don’t Be Distinctive

Here is a sneak preview. One of my favorite cartoons is above. This one is about the advertising agency’s fear of sounding too different. Too distinctive. Too bold. You know, “What if we sound too assertive, have ideas that scare the client, take a too strong position, are wrong…” This thinking leads to sameness. The sameness that My friend Steve Klinetobe and his The Cartoon Agency (check them out) illustrates in his 12 cartoon series.

These cartoons will be in the book and will be animated for the web to increase their virality (is this a word?)

Pass Along Help Please

One of the things that I talk about with my agency clients is that they should ask their clients, ex-clients, suppliers, partners, family and friends to refer the agency when appropriate. You know, just ask politely.

So in the interest of asking: Please pass this post on to your friends and ask them to sign up for my weekly newsletter below so that they hear about the book before it is sold out. Uh, yeah, another LOL. But one that I want to happen.

D&AD Most Awarded 2014 – Videos

Peter · June 24, 2014 · Leave a Comment

This year’s awards for videos… wonderful stuff. Almost makes me want to buy things.

I Wanted To Like Grip – But No KISS

Peter · June 23, 2014 · Leave a Comment

I friend sent me to the funny infographic “The Anatomy of An Agency” from Canada’s Grip Limited. It’s at the bottom of this post. The infographic nails advertising agency culture and, based on the number of comments, got well distributed making it a much higher trafficked post that the great majority of agency blog posts. Most of them appear written for the agency itself or their close friends.

OK, nice job so far. I even like the blog’s editorial content in general.

OK, a good first impression so I go to the agency home page (not that easy to get to cause there isn’t a direct link.) That’s where things go horribly wrong. The Grip website is simply too wildly dizzying. Panel after panel. Here are two views of the site. The second view collapses all of the panels.

And, maybe this will work better for you than me… I can’t get the site to scroll up and down and I tried two different browsers.

My point: please do not build websites that make lives more difficult. Keep It Simple Stupid.

This one is one of the most difficult to use ad agency websites I’ve ever experienced. I am sure that there are clients that will get past the design to the really great advertising, thought leadership and cool personality. But, I couldn’t.

Now for the infographic: