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Magazines & Advertising Agencies Are Doing Marijuana

Peter · June 20, 2014 · 2 Comments

A friend recently gave me two copies of Northwest Leaf, the Pacific Northwest’s leading medical marijuana magazine. Get this: four-year-old Northwest Leaf ‘s May 2014 issue is 104 pages of jam-packed original content and … an unbelievable amount of marijuana industry advertising. Its monthly circulation is 30,000. Check out the issue here.

Should Magazines Be Doing Marijuana?

Should they? Well, you are some of the last people that I have tell that the print publication industry’s circulation and advertising are in steep decline. The FIPP World Magazine Trends 2013-14 chart (sorry about the fuzziness) shows what the future has in store for the print industry. Clearly no big news here.

The big(ist) news for me is that that the marijuana industry is driving the fast-paced growth of a local publication in a state where one of its major daily newspapers shut down a couple of years ago. There is so much interest in this new advertising category that the publisher of Northwest Leaf will be launching Oregon Leaf in July. How many print publishers are launching new publications in these digital times? Not too many.

Should Advertising Agencies Be Doing Marijuana?

Is Your Advertising Agency Positioning “Normcore?”

Peter · May 28, 2014 · Leave a Comment

The June ’14 issue of WIRED reports that “normcore” is a jargon word to watch. Normcore is so vanilla that it reminds me of at least 50% of the advertising agencies. That’s all agencies. Here is WIRED’s definition.

Averageness as a personal style. The apotheosis of anti-fashion, being normcore entails blending in – wearing a baseball cap to the ballpark and a velvet suit to the disco – and always acting like you’re totally into whatever you happen to be doing.

Yo, Is Your Agency Normcore?

How are agencies normcore?

They sound alike. See my long post on advertising agency positioning.

They say the same things: consumer conversations; media agnostic (yes, some still say this); full-service; we are problem solvers; we are creative; we are nimble; we came from large agencies… and on.

They even like to have photos of their reception area on their website.

They serve beer from real-life kegs on Fridays.

I’ll help you free your agency from being normcore. I do it every day for agencies that know that the only way they will succeeded is to be abnormal-core.

Does Size Matter In Advertising?

Peter · May 11, 2014 · Leave a Comment

By now we’ve all yawned at the failure of the Omnicom / Publicis merger.

Here is how Bloomberg reported the snoozer and a link to an insightful interview on Bloomberg Television’s “The Pulse” with London Advertising’s CEO Michael Moszynski. Michael manages to offer a perspective that only the English could enunciate clearly — and he gets some great PR for his agency. And… manages to also squeeze in London’s One Brilliant Idea pitch – sweet:

“LONDON is an international advertising agency built for today. We create One Brilliant Idea that can work in any media, anywhere in the world.”

Not a bad PR days work.

So Does Size Matter?

No.

But, of course, many clients like it big. Microsoft as of last week thinks that having a mega-sized agency is a must have for a major brand that lives across the globe and, I assume, a cure all for past marketing ills. From Advertising Age:

Microsoft is moving its multibillion-dollar ad and media business, indicating a fresh-start approach under newly appointed CMO Chris Capossela.

The tech giant has selected Interpublic Group as agency of record for advertising and global deployment while Dentsu Argis will handle media planning, media buying and search advertising, the company said in a statement.

You want big?

Interpublic has 43,000 employees and dentsu 7,500. Does Microsoft, a notoriously lame, directionless marketer, need an agency resource with over 50,000 scattered strangers or does it need one really smart agency that can manage some global TLC? Smart being the operative word.

Sure Microsoft (and thier new CMO) thinks MSFT needs lots of dots on a map and I know that this perspective, in addition to ego, drove a search for a ~~large~~ humongus agency base. But, what Microsoft really needs more than a BIG agency is A BIG STRATEGIC IDEA to help create a big, sustainable, compelling brand proposition for all of their B2C and B2B brands? You know, a Master Brand position to start and then run with. Apple, a notoriously not lame or directionless company, never went mega agency. Nuf said.

And, at the moment I think that Google is creating some of the best tech advertising. Can you name their huge agency?

But, really does size matter? That’s why I want you to watch the Bloomberg video. Michael answers the question.

[Truth be told, I sold the idea of dots on the map when I ran business development at Saatchi. So, I get that approach. But, it feels so 1990’s.]

2 Advertising Agency Facts

Peter · May 7, 2014 · Leave a Comment

Advertising Age reports that digital is now 35.3% of U.S. agency revenue. This is up 73% since 2009. In fact, digital revenue is the only growth area. Radio anyone?

Mobile ad spending is reported to be $44.8 billion in 2017. It was $4.4 billion in…. Ta Da: 2012.

So? Watcha gonna do?