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Truth In Advertising: Adweak’s New Video Series

Peter · June 10, 2015 · Leave a Comment

Adweak Tells It Like It Is

adweak   Twitter SearchI’ve been laughing along with Adweak on Twitter – @adweak – for awhile. I, and I hope you, need a bit of a humorous reality check about the occasionally pompous ad folk out there. No, not you, those other spophisticated ad folk.

Need an example of a Tweet that hits home? I owned a small agency. We often hyped how nimble we were. Here’s Adweak’s take.

Adweak ‏@adweak Jun 9

BREAKING: Small Agency Just Keeps Reiterating How Nimble They Are Throughout Entire Pitch Meeting

Of course, when I worked for the huge Saatchi, we hyped all about our BIG size and zillions of offices. Small is beautiful. Big is beautiful. Whatever it takes to land that new account.

Now, Adweak has branched out from under cover of Twitter to the world of videos (see below.)

But First, Who Is Adweak?

Well, they won’t tell. But, they now want some of YOUR money. So, I guess if you want some of their great writing + humor, they are willing to let you in. Here are two things they say on ‘their’ website. first what they are selling today and second how they tell their story.

The SELL: Adweak is branching out. While writing snarky tweets about marketing and advertising for nothing is fun, getting paid is even more fun.  To that end, we’ve launched AdweakWorks. We’re a creative team of writers, directors and producers available to work with agencies or directly with brands.   

If you want to work with us, click below. (Here is the link…)

The STORY: Adweak began many years ago in the form of a website very much like The Onion.  In fact we literally said, “We should do an advertising version of The Onion.”  So the Adweak.com domain name was purchased and within 24 hours our first edition was uploaded to the World Wide Web. We never really planned to publish new editions on a regular basis but the site started gaining popularity and we, for some reason, felt compelled to keep it going.  We published new editions on an irregular basis for several years and ultimately let Adweak just sort of fade away.

In October of 2013 we decided to resurrect Adweak in the form of a Twitter account.  But this time there was an objective beyond just providing comic relief to the marketing and advertising masses.

We wanted to see if we could do exactly the opposite of what every self-proclaimed social media guru advises and still be successful.  For instance, we don’t follow anyone.  We don’t retweet anyone and we don’t reply to anyone.   We post updates multiple times a day (we’ve even posted multiple times within an hour).  And we’ve never used a hashtag.  These are all ill-advised according to the social experts. We have over 8,000 organic followers and not a single one of them has been purchased.  In fact we haven’t spent a penny promoting @Adweak.

So is @Adweak a success? Here are the stats.

-Over 470k impressions per month.

-1.5k Retweets per month

-1.7k Favorites per month

In our humble opinion, that’s not bad considering the aforementioned social infractions.  And to us, it proves once again that people have, and always will, consume and engage with great content.

OK, Back To The Videos.

Here are two sweeties. First is what I’ll call social media roulette. The second is the obligatory exit interview — the one that HR makes you do (and, yes, that is a pissed off Portland copywriter). All can be seen right here on YouTube.

 

Gary Vaynerchuk: Old School Advertising Agency CEO

Peter · June 5, 2015 · Leave a Comment

Gary Vaynerchuk: Old School Advertising Agency CEO

VaynerMediaWhat does ‘old school’ mean? Well, one of the things is having a personality and being able to express it in such a powerful and interesting and enrgetic way that prospective clients just have to….

…Make The “I want you” Call

This agency video (actually a Digiday interview) makes me want to call up and give VaynerMedia some business. Does your agency video act as a brand-building business development tool? Do you want to be famous? Gary has always wanted to be famous and this obvious goal delivers big time for his agency’s growth. Watch and steal some of the energy.

 

Overdone Ad Agency Design Fries My Brain

Peter · June 4, 2015 · Leave a Comment

Overdone Ad Agency Design Fries My Brain

Pinterest  Discover and save creative ideasI spend a lot of time looking at ad agency websites. I even have a Pinterest website that includes many (that’s it on the left.)

Soooo many are overblown, over baked, over jam-packed with copy and images. These websites also sound alike with about, work, process (‘our agency’s very own special sauce), client lists, photos of offices, contact pages, hip staff photos and long lists of services. Yes, I get it. These are logical sections. But doing what the other 4,000 ad agencies do is not very original.

I Am Beginning To Really Dig Minimalism

WalrusI am not yet sure what I really think about Walrus‘ approach (i.e. the talking walrus.) BUT… it is minimal and does not look like any other agency and there is a bit of humor which is sorely missing in the advertising industry, so I will give it a mighty WOW.

2 Minimalist Inspirations

[Read more…] about Overdone Ad Agency Design Fries My Brain

Charles Barkley On Social Media

Peter · May 21, 2015 · Leave a Comment

barkleyCharles Barkley On Social Media

A quote from Charles Barkley from an episode of the sports TV show Pardon The Interruption…

Twitter is…

“Where losers go to feel important.”

…. So, please FOLLOW! Me: @peterlevitan

 

Advertising Agencies And A New $13.4 Billion Client

Peter · May 11, 2015 · Leave a Comment

photo_front_million_dollar_billNothing should warm the soul of advertising agencies like the introduction of a brand new multi-billion dollar category. The newest category (well, new to legal marketing, not eons of inhalation) is the marijuana industry.

A recent study from IBISworld states:

  • IBISWorld projects the marijuana industry to generate $13.4 billion in revenue in 2020, up an annualized 30.3%.

[Read more…] about Advertising Agencies And A New $13.4 Billion Client

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