new business

Chatbots and Your Advertising Agency

Peter · November 18, 2016 · 1 Comment

Chatbots, Bots, Guest Posting and Your Advertising Agency

Check out my article Why Bots Are the Next Big Frontier for Agencies that was posted this morning on HubSpot’s marketing blog. The article discusses my views on the power of Chatbots, the looming opportunity for advertising agencies to get on this bandwagon and my personal experience running ActiveBuddy, an early Chatbot company.

3 Takeaways

My article offers three big takeaways (I mean immediately actionable takeaways) for your ad agency and its new business program:

Something new for you to talk about. Pay attention to AI and Chatbots. Savvy advertising agencies will jump on this bandwagon. It is real. Why? People like to talk to smart, friendly, uber programmed computers rather than tap out on the keyboard and phone. Oh, and Facebook loves chatbots.
Your skill. Advertising agencies are good at writing or should be. Creating smart Chatbots is all about understanding human communications and writing scripts that recognize how interpersonal communications work. This is what a savvy advertising agency is good at. That savvy agency is also good at building brand to consumer conversations. Believe me, you’ve spent almost 10 years building static apps. Chatbots will unleash your inner conversational bot expertise. This is already in-house.
Reach. I’m sure that you love your agency blog. But, guest posting on a mega website like HubSpot will drive way more incremental reach for your thought leadership, ideas and brand awareness. Why? Alexa tells me that HubSpot is the 529th highest ranked website. Get this, Ogilvy’s website is ranked at only 41,659 — after zillions of years of being in the ad business. Even a smart one at Ogilvy should think about guest posting if she’d like to reach more folks.

On the subject of reach… after only a couple of hours, my post was shared lots. See….

Last point. Here is the video ActiveBuddy made 14 years ago to launch our company. You’ll see that I thought bots were a big fucking idea then. I still do.

Advertising Agency Business Development Timing

Peter · November 14, 2016 · Leave a Comment

Is Your Advertising Agency Good At Timing?

This might be the most important advertising agency business development blog post you will ever read. It is all about timing. And, it discusses an oh so simple solution.

Why? Because if there is any one thing that advertising agencies of all sizes do not do when it comes to business development it’s… a paucity of planning and follow-through.

Note: My research with agency clients indicates that only 40% of agencies use and are slavish to their business development calendar.

I don’t care if you are small or huge. Failure to run your plan, once you have one (and, yes, this is a whole notha story), could be your primary failure. You know it and I do. We even have an oft and way over-used metaphor to describe the issue… the cobbler who does not have the time to make shoes for his own children. I am tired of hearing this parable and so should you. It is a ~~shitty~~ poor and very lame excuse.

You want clients like Nike and Audi and that huge healthcare client and that global e-commerce website job, right? Well, do you think that these marketers sit around and talk about how they do not have the time to plan and run their sales program? That they are too busy working with their current customers to go find new ones?

If Your Agency Is Shoeless… Read On

Look, I get it. I ran business development at the world’s largest agency and at my own digital and advertising agency companies. Hey, I even do sales right here at my consulting company. Sales requires dedication and on-going activity. It is time-consuming. It takes you away from servicing your current clients. It can be a real pain. But, if you do not do it with a high degree of consistency, you will fail and will go under. You certainly won’t make enough moolah to buy that Porsche 911 or the Cadillac of mini-vans for your kids.

The Solution: The Business Development Calendar

Is Your Ad Agency Special?

Peter · October 31, 2016 · Leave a Comment

The “Special” Ad Agency Wins

I’ve written about the need for creating ad agency differentiation if an agency wants to excite and win new clients…

(I know, I know, you know that I know that you know how important having an agency positioning that stands out is.)

But, most agencies do not seek a high degree of differentiation. They are not bold. Full stop. They are willing to be not different.

There are many reasons for this. One of the most expressed fears is that (and I know that this is going to sound insane)… is that agencies do not want to sound too different for fear of losing the opportunity to pitch LOTS of clients. The belief is that being a ‘general’ agency, even a general digital or PR agency, will beget more opportunities to pitch for a broad range of clients. These agencies are playing a losing numbers game. Having a clear, yes narrower, refined, brand positioning will win in the end.

Give clients an opportunity to view your agency as being special and unmistakenly desirable. Think different and look different.

My Unignorable Agency Presentation – 9 Paths To Special

I was recently asked by a large agency network to give a brief presentation on what are key ways to differentiate an agency. I came up with nine paths to being Unignorable: Positioning; Attitude; Ego Mania; Specialization; AHA!; Carpe Diem; Humor; Awards; Your Website.

Each one of these paths represents an opportunity to help your agency stand out from the other 3,999 agencies seeking the clients you deserve and… Be Different.

Hope yo enjoy the presentation and take away a couple of paths to specialness.

How To Win An Advertising Award

Peter · October 26, 2016 · Leave a Comment

Go Win An Advertising Award

It took me awhile to fully understand the value of winning an advertising agency award in the in the context of business development. Yes, I know, I should have figured this out a lot earlier. Especially, when you consider that I ran business development at Saatchi & Saatchi in the days when they won everything and later, when I ran my own agency.

While it is fun for the agency staff to win awards (well, the right awards), the true value in winning those shiny objects is in helping clients recognize your brilliance. To put it mildly, clients – as in your prospective clients – are not experts at selecting agencies and this fact is exacerbated by the fact that many agencies, once they make the final cut, kinda look and sound alike. In this environment, awards represent extremely valuable third-party endorsement.

EFFIES prove your strategic chops. Clios and ADDY’s prove creativity. In the media space, MediaPost just announced their Agency of the Year awards. Considering how critical media planning is in today’s fractured media environment, media awards can be leveraged to prove your agency’s media prowess.

Strategic Award Planning

Ok, so you want to incorporate award-winning into your business development plan. Good idea. I know that some of the major agencies approach awards with a very strategic business development perspective. This is a big subject. For now, here are the basics that should help you enter the right award categories.

The Who: What clients do you want to excite? What are their interests, needs, and fears? What do they value – pure creativity, strategy, agency fame (as in hiring an agency because they look real cool)?

The What: There is a big difference between winning a creative award (subjective) and a strategy award (ROI). Some clients need proof that you are creative and some need to know that you know how to deliver on the client’s objectives.

The Where: Sure, winning a Clio is nice. But, most agencies are simply not going to win the big ones. This isn’t because they don’t deserve to. It is because these awards are really set up to honor the bigger agencies – with big award budgets. That’s just how it is – award shows are not about the awards, they are profit centers for the award entities. So, I suggest that some of the better local awards can make a great deal of sense. In this case, base these on where you clients are going to come from. A great example of a powerful local award program is The Rosey Awards from the Portland Ad Fed. In this case, your agency has a good chance to beat Portland’s Wieden & Kennedy powerhouse.

Last point. Be very strategic about how you enter. Study past award shows to see if you can figure out how and why other agencies have won. Dancer Fitzgerald Sample, my first agency, figured out a smart system for EFFIE entries. We studied winning agency applications. Our system helped us become a major winner.

Start Today: Media Post’s ‘Agency of the Year’ Open For Submissions

MediaPost is accepting submissions for its annual ‘Agency of the Year’ awards. If you would like to nominate an organization, please contact joe@mediapost.com by the end of October. We recognize the following categories:

Media Agency, Digital Agency, Social Agency, Search Agency, Programmatic Agency, Mobile Agency, Creative Agency, Holding Company, Client, Supplier, Executive.

Gary Vaynerchuck And His ANA Advertising Rant

Peter · October 22, 2016 · Leave a Comment

Gary Vaynerchuck Tells It Like It Is

I have written about Gary Vaynerchuck and his take on advertising and the industry twice before. Both positive and negative.

Gary Vaynerchuck Is Full Of Shit

Gary Vaynerchuck: Old School Advertising Agency CEO

Today, I’d like to respond to his ‘rant’ (according to Advertising Age) on the advertising industry that he delivered at the Association of National Advertisers Masters of Marketing conference.

Gary’s comments and my perspective follow. Before you start, I’d like to say again that I admire Gary and his brilliant job of building Vayner Media, one of the fastest growing agencies in the business. His built-for-today agency is an example of how to do it right that many agency CEO’s should study.

The Gary Vaynerchuck Annual Rant

On improving creative: “Everyone likes to talk about the media inefficiencies and transparencies, but what about the creative? We have to understand our brands mean different things to different people and the attention of the consumer is shifting at scale. Creative gets elevated when we accept an ecosystem that gives us more creative at bats.”

My Take… Creative at bats. Hmm. OK, I get it. Spread your creativity around the world of media platforms. But, a big but, creativity is not about volume. It is about ideas that arrest and tell brand stories and tidbits that capture attention and excite. Big compelling ideas that drive interest and, yes folks, sell something. Go here to read about the history of the early days of Volkswagen advertising – The best Advertising Ever. It will prove my point.

On the potency of the Super Bowl: “When I buy my first brand, the first thing I’m going to do is run multiple Super Bowl ads,” he said. “The No. 1 underpriced value of attention is the Super Bowl. Every single person watches it, but the problem with the current execution of the Super Bowl is the creative has so much vested interest in being a showcase for agencies … we’re not making the kind of work that takes advantage.”

Another OK. Please, we all get that agencies try to flex their creative muscle when they get a chance to create advertising for the Super Bowl. Guess what, some not so great Executive Creative Directors think first about their reel. Do we really need to here again? OK again… yes, there are lame agencies (occasionally abetted by immature Internet brands) that do this. But, I know that as clients have gotten more focused on selling, the run of silly TV commercials has diminished.

OK again… yes, there are lame agencies (occasionally abetted by immature Internet brands and super nervous marketing directors who might also be building their reels) that do this. But, I know that as clients have gotten more focused on selling, the run of silly Super Bowl TV commercials has diminished.

On measuring marketing: “You’re scoring the wrong shit,” he said. “There’s a new world and attention is in different places. I could care less if Facebook, Instagram or Snapchat exist tomorrow — I just care about where your attention is.”

HUH? Why is Gary talking down to experienced agency leaders and how they measure effectiveness? Oh, this speech is all about selling his agency’s expertise. Bravo to Gary’s salesmanship.

On targeting your audience: “If you are running [TV] commercials for a brand that targets consumers 22 and under, you’re a fuckface.”

Well, why rule out TV? The under 22-year-old crowd does, in fact, watch TV. Not all of it and not clearly (of course, we all know this right?) as much as their dads. But they watch it. Is Gary suggesting that brands should avoid TV – ever? Never consider it a part of the traditional – social – video – outdoor (still going strong) media mix? Not recognize that a bunch of TV is not viewed on the old-fashioned TV set but on the phone? Really, is he saying this? Or just saying that advertisers should talk to him about how fucked up the big agencies are? Again. Remember, Gary is on a sales call to the ANA and Advertising Age has graciously abetted his cause.

On final takeaways: “You’re going to die,” Mr. Vaynerchuk said. “It’s an amazing time to be in this industry if you’re on the offense, it’s the worst time if you’re on the defense and 95% of you are on the defense.”

Duh! This sounds like career advice you give to your 18-about-to-go to college neighbor.