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Why Clients Fire Advertising Agencies

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Why Do Clients Fire Advertising Agencies?

firedTake a read of the SoDA Report below which includes an expert opinion on the subject of why clients fire their agencies and other subjects that will help you keep your clients happy and make you smarter than the agency next door.

Oh, why do advertising and digital agencies get hired and fired? A key reason for getting fired (other than the new Marketing Director’s need to look active; and an agency’s failure to keep up with the rapid pace of change) is very often the very same reason clients hire agencies in the first place…

It has a lot to do with interpersonal chemistry according to Darren Woolley of Australia’s TrinityP3, a leading global advertising agency search consultant and client advisor. I love this point: “It’s all about the relationship.”

Darren is also one of the most valuable contributors to my book on pitching… You can read one of my two interviews with him on the client mind-set and how to win more pitches in an earlier post right here. [Read more…] about Why Clients Fire Advertising Agencies

Thanks To HubSpot, Ad Contrarian & Advertising Week

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Making Friends Is Good Business

I was on a plane from Portland to Boston yesterday. I spent some of the time reading John Jantsch’s new book “Duct Tape Selling”. He is a big fan of making friends with bloggers and other industry influencers to advance your own brand awareness and authority. I make friends and it works.

download hubspotI am here to speak at HubSpot’s Inbound 2014 conference. I am up on Thursday speaking about how advertising agencies (and all B2B marketers) can write and publish a book in 6 months. True. I’ve done it twice. You can see my presentation here.

I was invited to speak because of my guest posting relationship with Agency Post, an advertising industry blog that was purchased by HubSpot. The strategic friendship with Agency Post delivers awareness for my advertising agency consultancy and now this connection to the all-powerful HubSpot marketing machine.

download (1) ad contrarianI am also a friend of San Francisco’s Bob Hoffman. Bob is the best selling author of “101 Contrarian Ideas About Advertising” which is Amazon’s #1 selling advertising book, “The Ad Contrarian” and “The Ad Contrarian” blog, which was named one of the world’s most influential advertising and marketing blogs by Business Insider.

Today Bob published a blog post about my book. Actually, he published the interview I did with him about his views on advertising agency pitching.

Bob makes 7 points about pitching. I’ll riff on the headlines. You’ll have to visit Bob’s blog to see what he wrote.

Or, if you really want to get the full Levitan Pitch treatment (and all of my interviews with experts)… buy the book.

Here’s Bob on pitching:

  1. You can’t be everyone’s girlfriend: Simply put, don’t’ pitch everything that walks.
  2. Do what you tell your clients to do: Look and sound different from your competitive agency set.
  3. Be clear on your objective at each stage: Run your pitch like a strategic marathon, not a sprint. Read Bob’s words to see what I mean.
  4. Make the presentation you want to make, not the one you’re asked to make: Be authentic.
  5. Only let the good presenters talk: Bring your best. The one’s that will win.
  6. Have a strategy and stick to it: Run a smart, strategic presentation.
  7. The best new business program is a good reputation: I’ll use Bob’s word here… Duh!

images advertising weekI also write for Advertising Week Social Club. Because of this, I am going to Advertising Week New York as a journalist. This is a major conference and I will be able to promote my book to industry leaders. I am also starting to work with them to see if I can put on a program at Advertising Week Europe.

I could go on about the obvious benefits of making friends but I suspect that you get it.

However, there is one key point I have to make.

Your relationships need to be a two-way street. Make friends to make friends first and the goodies will flow. Follow rule number 8:

Do Not Be Obnoxious.

Now, be my friend by signing up for my newsletter below. I promise that I will reward you with smart thinking every week.

Marijuana Advertising

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Marijuana Advertising = New Client Category

It’s a brave new world. Leafly, a cool new marijuana information website and app, just ran a $200,000 full-page ad in Sunday’s New York Times. Here is Leafly itself on their ad, Leafly Places Nation’s First Consumer Cannabis Advertisement in The New York Times. Keep your eye on this category. It’s blowing up.

By the way, Did Leafly get it right?

leafly print ad (2)This is the New York  Times ad. Does it work? Yes and no.

Yes, because Leafly had the cajones to run the ad. It puts them on the map and the ad delivers a leadership position via the ad placement in our leading national newspaper. Their message is New York centric as it congratulates New York on its Compassionate Care Act.

The ad fails because its casting is amateurish. The use of two (too) cute twenty-something New Yorkers just doesn’t’ work. The guy with MS, OK, I might believe that. But, identifying Molly, an athletic runner, as a person who needs, needs, pot to cure her pain, is ridiculous. What a missed opportunity to show what is really going on in the world of medical marijuana… it works for women like Molly’s mom too.

I have to fault Leafly for acting a bit like a too well-funded 2000 Internet boom start-up. Remember those silly days when twenty-something start-up CEO’s tossed millions at Super Bowl ads? Remember the Pets.com sock puppet?