ad agency

IDL Worldwide & Best Ad Agency Sign

Peter · July 2, 2013 · Leave a Comment

One could argue that coming up with recognition for “Best Agency Sign” is not that relevant to the ad business. But, IDL Worldwide, as they say on Twitter: “@IDLWorldwide. Brand in Real Life”, is about experiences. To kinda prove the point to people walking through Portland’s trendy North Park Blocks (I say trendy just to piss off Portland folks) that IDL lives up to “real life”, they have a Working / Playing neon sign over their front door.

Since sizable crowds walk by the agency during Portland’s First Thursday Art Walk, the agency proudly declares PLAYING while serving free beers to people who come into see IDL’s art show.

So, what I dig is that they are living and declaring the agency’s stated mantra and reason for being.

Here is their neon sign which changes from…

Leagas Delaney + Booz & Company + Snowden

Peter · June 26, 2013 · 1 Comment

From the June 26th edition of Britain’s advertising industry Campaign Magazine comes this rather timely headline:

Leagas Delaney launches tech alliance with Booz & Company

Teams from the two companies will be created to work on designing customer experience, crafting technology solutions and working with clients to launch these solutions. Discussions with potential clients have begun.

Delaney said: “Our combined model with Booz Digital will bring CEOs and CMOs the confidence that their vision for transforming their business can be realised because we understand the accelerated change that consumers’ digital demands create.”

Imagine. You are Leagas’ founder Tim Delaney and you are sitting on this big news and you wake up a week earlier to this headline:

Booz Allen Hamilton: Edward Snowden News ‘Shocking’, ‘A Grave Violation’

Now, to be factual, Booz and Booz Allen Hamilton (Snowden’s employer and earner of $3.8 billion in secretive U.S. defense contracts) are separate companies. Booz was spun out a few years ago. But, its all a bit confusing. And the branding issue, like who knows that Booz and Booz aren’t the same…. well, you know.

So, whether Leagas likes it or not*, to the unknowing, they are now associated with America’s latest whistle-blower / traitor-type.

*By the way, timing and unfortunate branding issues aside, the idea of an advertising agency teaming up with a smart tech company is brilliant. I have been preaching this type of alliance since 1995 when I left Saatchi to found my first Internet start-up.

Zillow Advertising: Nice New TV Commercial. But, Why Leave Seattle?

Peter · June 18, 2013 · 1 Comment

I am starting to think about selling my house so I’m paying attention to real estate advertising. This new TV spot from Zillow hit the spot. The :60 commercial stars a family looking at homes while living in different cites. Or is dad just traveling? You’ll have to see the surprise (rather) emotional ending to find out.

The commercial was done by Deutsch L.A. (a nice advertising agency.) But, since Zillow is in Seattle…. why did they have to take their business out of town? I could have helped them find at least 5 very sharp agencies in Seattle. They live here.

I’d love to ask Amy Bohutinsky, Zillow’s chief marketing officer, the Seattle question. Did she explore the Seattle ad agency market? Did Seattle advertising agencies not reach out – she’s been at Zillow for 7 years? Did she need a trip to L.A.? I know a few sensitive ad folks up north who could have delivered some sharp advertising — and a decent bottle of wine. When I owned my Portland agency it always killed me when a local client took their business out of town.

Oh well, never mind – at least it’s well-branded advertising that tells a sweet story. Here is a smart quote from Amy about the ad strategy:

“The process of shopping for a home today is emotional, absorbing, collaborative, and driven by technology and online information. Our ‘Find Your Way Home’ campaign chronicles modern families in ways that most home shoppers can relate — as they search for not just a home, but a place for their life to happen.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=o3bZz_JHyyA

Ad Agencies: Follow The Mobile Advertising Money

Peter · June 17, 2013 · Leave a Comment

Advertising, design, PR and digital agencies are always searching for the next pot of gold. Determining which revenue pot to aim for (I know “pot” sounds kinda awful) is part of business development planning. As we move deeper into the digital age, we need more tools and insights to help us figure out the best plan and agency structure to meet our client’s rapidly evolving needs.

eMarketer, with their daily charts and information, has been a very insightful guide for business planning. For example, they called the future of mobile advertising fairly early. Some smart and increasingly successful agencies figured out that mobile could be their future and built an agency around delivering mobile services.

Radel Artida of Staff.com, a global recruitment platform, recently sent me the infographic posted below that shows the IT jobs with the highest pay. I think that it could be used by agency planners to help determine where the money is and is going. The fastest growing categories for IT professionals are mobile development (with Android jobs up 129% and iOS up 190%), cloud computing and gaming. Website development continues to grow, however at a slower pace.

My bet continues to be on mobile. Here’s an idea: I suggest that agency managers start to think through having a thought-leadership program that explores and explains the mobile space for their clients. This serves a couple of purposes. It would force a mobile-lite agency and its staff to begin to learn about the mobile advertising platform, it positions the agency for the increasing move to mobile and it starts to build some mobile SEO honey for the agency blog. It is also a powerful business development strategy.

8 Vine Ideas For Ad Agency New Business

Peter · June 11, 2013 · Leave a Comment

I’ve written about the opportunity for an ad, digital or PR agency to leverage the growing awareness and use of Twitter’s Vine, its short-form (as in 6 seconds) video service that runs on iOS and Android, as a new business tool.

I suggested that there has to be an ad agency out there that sees the potential of becoming the first 6-Second ad agency. No, you don’t have to shut down your other services. Just create a Vine division. I think that this could take about 2 hours. Hey, your agency’s new business program probably needs something new to talk about.

Well, here is more fuel. Vines are now shared more often that Instagram photos.

From Memeburn: “According to insights from Twitter-certified analytics partner Topsy the number of Vine posts shared on the site passed the number of Instagram posts late last week, just days after the previously iOS-only Vine launched on Android. It’s an interesting trend, considering the fact that Vine has a much smaller user base than Instagram — it has just 13-million registered users against Instagram’s 100-million active users.For all I know, an agency is doing this.But, I bet that there is still room to grab this tool and run with it. Here are a few thought starters.”

So to help you get going, here are:

8 Ideas For Using Vine For Ad Agency Business Development

Write about Vine on your agency Blog.
Write a Vine (and video marketing) white paper and send it to current and prospective clients.
Run a micro-information-oriented Vine Twitter strategy. Do 3 to 5 Tweets a day for a couple of weeks and watch the stats.
Create a Vine Pinterest site. Think “Best of Vine.”
Do some sample Vine “ads” for client types.
Hire a local comedian to do 6-second comedy skits for your agency.
Get your Vine out: do Vine local reviews of anything: products, services, bars, clubs, bands, dogs, cats (people love dogs and cats.)
Do a Vine about everyone in your agency and add it to your website.

I could keep going but… I’ll save more ideas for my agency clients.

Oh, just in case you need a bit more info, here is today’s infographic.