Podcasting

The Smartest African American Advertising Agency

Peter · August 20, 2020 · Leave a Comment

The Real Power Of African American Advertising

Wil Shelton runs L.A.’s Wil Power Integrated Marketing, a major force in African American advertising and marketing. Here is just one not-ordinary thing that they do:

“Wil Power Integrated Marketing is positioned in more than 40 urban markets nationwide with well-established business relationships with over 100,000 African American salons and barbershop nationwide and the ability to reach over 100 million consumers annually.”

How many advertising agencies have a unique idea as powerful or as unignorable as that?

WOW!

I was blown away when I heard about the Wil Power Integrated Marketing approach to marketing to the African American community. While all agencies, Wil Power included, fuss over their digital programs, few get “out on the street” to meet people and talk to them where they hang out. Wil Power gets it and has harnessed the power of America’s salons and barbershops – where millions of people meet to discuss their lives and what they do, eat, drink watch, and buy.

From an advertising agency business development perspective, Wil Power offers its national Fortune 500, entertainment, streaming, and telecom clients a solution that is totally unique — it is based on Wil Shelton’s perspective and hard work that get him and his clients inside over 100,000 salons and barbershops.

Yes, there is more. Have you listened to Wil on how to solve the problem of racism in advertising and marketing? In particular, the low numbers in African American senior advertising and marketing positions? Go ahead, take a listen — “Kamala Harris And Advertising…”

Links To Wil Shelton And His African American Advertising & Marketing Solutions…

Wil Power Integrated Marketing

Wil Shelton on LinkedIn

Hypnotism coming: Remember to subscribe to Advertising Stories. Remember to subscribe to Advertising Stories.

A nice thing for me… Feedspot has recognized Advertising Stories as being a top 15 advertising podcast.

Kamala Harris And Advertising. Not.

Peter · August 13, 2020 · Leave a Comment

Kamala Harris And Advertising. Could Kamala Get A Senior Job At An Ad Agency? Probably Not.

I pose the question about Kamala Harris and advertising as a thought-starter that leads to my discussion about the rather poor numbers of African-Americans in senior marketing and advertising roles. WOW, what an understatement.

I recently interviewed Wil Shelton, the CEO/Founder of L.A.’s Wil Power Integrated Marketing agency. Wil Power is a unique independent African-American market expert agency. The power of Wil Power comes from its work at “Harnessing the power of word of mouth in the African American market through Urban Beauty Salon and Barbershop marketing.”

In this interview, I asked Wil for his thoughts on what I consider the appalling state of African-American representation within leadership at the four major advertising agency networks (2 percent) and the CMO ranks at the Association of National Advertisers (3 percent.) That’s why I ask the question, could Kamala Harris get a job in advertising? Do the words Kamala Harris and advertising sound like a deal in 2020? Not in today’s advertising and marketing worlds.

Note that the marketing communications agencies Wieden+Kennedy with its Workforce Data and San Diego’s Basic are working to increase diversity and inclusion. My guess is that these two agencies, when asked if Kamala Harris and advertising could work together would be a YES. Would WPP say yes? That’s your guess.

This is inclusive “career” copy from a notice on Basic’s President Matt Faulk’s LinkedIn page. Basic is looking for some new people. I bet that Kamala Harris and advertising would work at Basic:

As we look to further develop a diverse, equitable, and inclusive workplace, we’re currently looking for Creative Directors, Design Directors, Senior Designers, and Producers (all levels) to come join our team.

The Full Transcript Of The Wil Shelton Interview. And Why Kamala Harris And Advertising Might Not Have Been.

The interview was modified for clarity and brevity. This Interview Was Held Before Ms. Harris’ Appointment.

Peter: Hello, Advertising Stories people. Today I am talking with Wil Shelton, that’s with one L, and he is the CEO of the marketing agency, Wil Power Integrated Marketing. Again, with one L.

This conversation is about diversity, the lack thereof, and hopefully the opportunity of driving more diversity and inclusion in marketing and advertising. This must be a conversation you have often Wil, is that right?

Wil: Yeah, I do have it often. At this time, in this era that we’re in, yes.

Peter: Let’s just jump into that for a second. When you say this time, we have an increased consciousness of the lack of diversity, the problems of endemic… You fill in the next word. Do you think that the world that we’re living in now, the awareness of the really big idea of Black Lives Matter, do you think that will have a positive effect on the growth and expansion of diversity within the marketing and advertising communities? [Read more…] about Kamala Harris And Advertising. Not.

How To Grow Your Advertising Agency

Peter · August 10, 2020 · Leave a Comment

I Know, I Know. You Want To Grow Your Advertising Agency.

Here is an entertaining interview with Joe Koufman, CEO and Founder of Setup, an Atlanta-based agency and client “matchmaking” consultancy. Here is what Setup says they do to help y’all to grow your advertising agency. Man, I’d like to see more agencies be able to tell their story this fast. Very succinct.

“Setup™ (marketing matchmakers) ignites relationships between brands and marketing agencies. Marketers often require help from experts, but can’t always find them.”

Joe, a biz dev expert, and I discuss the core principles that deliver a strong sales pipeline and on to building wonderful marketing and advertising agency and client relationships. Ah, love!

Getting there includes having the right agency positioning (as one of my M&A specialists told me last week – this means telling the client exactly what you do and can do for them before they form their own opinion); understanding if the prospective client has a capacity or a capability challenge; having an information system; knowing how to do the best-targeted outreach; the critical importance of managing and building interpersonal chemistry; and the, yes, closing the deal. As an agency owner and consultant, Joe’s perspective and advice is right on.

Joe also talks a bit about having been on the scene of a few agency sales and mergers. As he says, some are great, some so-so and one was a kind of a failure.

Selling and buying a company isn’t that easy. OK, not that hard if you read my book, How To Sell Your Advertising Agency. (I had to get this in there.)

Here are links to Joe and Setup.

Joe Koufman.

Setup.

Hypnotism coming: Remember to subscribe to Advertising Stories. Remember to subscribe to Advertising Stories.

A nice thing for me… Feedspot has recognized Advertising Stories as being a top 15 advertising podcast.

Podcast Statistics From Podnews

Peter · August 9, 2020 · Leave a Comment

Podcast Statistics To Help You Decide To Podcast Or Not.

Hi. This is Sara. Peter’s AI personal assistant. He is taking a one day break from his personal interviews with super special marketers. There will be a new episode Wednesday. Today, because this is the kind of direct information I am designed to deliver, we are going to talk about podcast statistics. The monthly growth in new podcasts is phenomenal.

Peter wanted to share some information that he got from the very informative daily website and email Podnews “Your daily briefing for podcasting”. It is one of his daily must-reads via the website and emails. I’ll connect you to Podnews and its author James Cridland below. Podnews is where we get our news and importantly, podcast statistics.

Peter has been podcasting on (and then off) and now again since 2016. He knows that making the decision to podcast is not easy and he as written about the decision making criteria. Take a read. But, first, here are some podcast stats just for you from James that should either make you want to podcast or not.

317,219 podcasts have posted new episodes in the last 30 days resulting in 1,919,392 episodes being published. A side note, by far, most podcast shows are published by big publishers like NPR. Not the nice people across town.

Does length matter? James says that in 2018 he learned that 50% of Americans say that podcasts are too long. The average length of a podcast is 31 minutes. This informative puppy is 2:55. Peter averages at around 30 minutes.

Nothing, it seems, is forever. Do you know about what’s called pod fade? In August 2018, the podcast hosting company Blubrry claimed that 75% of all podcasts had pod faded. Gone. Poof. People just get tired of recording every week or so. The way to beat this is to use pace and a process. Have a plan.

That’s it. Oh, to help you, I will put a link to a great podcast interview Peter did with a podcast leader who said that podcasting is a smart marketing move. A great move if you know how to grow and market your podcast. Marketing is a good thing.

Podnews – Go ahead and subscribe.

James Cridland

How To Grow A Podcast – Blog

Hypnotism coming: Remember to subscribe to Advertising Stories. Remember to subscribe to Advertising Stories.

A nice thing for me… Feedspot has recognized Advertising Stories as being a top 15 advertising podcast.

Life After Advertising Podcast Series

Peter · August 3, 2020 · Leave a Comment

I’ve Written About Life After Advertising Before.

I am going to accelerate my discussion about the idea that there can be a wonderful life after advertising. I will cover lots of options over the next few months because I am seeing people leave the communications marketing industry for a bunch of reasons. Many people have planned to leave, many have had it foisted on them due to the pandemic, some are leaving advertising companies to go freelance and some are simply selling their agencies. Oh, yeah, some just need some NEW!

Today I (well my artificial assistant Sara) is offering some food for thought. Here are five resources that you can use to get your ball rolling as you exit the agency world.

Head over to How to Create a Million-Dollar Business This Weekend to read how Tim Ferris and Noah Kagan think that you can start a million-dollar business. LOL, yes this weekend.

From Noah: “For some reason, people love to make excuses about why they haven’t created their dream business or even gotten started.

This is the “wantrepreneur” epidemic, where people prevent themselves from ever actually doing the side-project they always talk about over beers.

The truth of the matter is that you don’t have to spend a lot of time building the foundation for a successful business. In most cases, it shouldn’t take you more than a couple days.

Think I’m joking?

We made the original product for Gambit in a weekend.

“WTF?!” Yes, a weekend.

In just 48 hours, some friends and I created a simple product that grew to a $1,000,000+ business within a year.”

Want to run a “passive income” business? No this does not really mean just sitting back and watching the moolah roll in. This does require work. But, it may be less workaholic than writing 87 Instagram posts per week. Pat Flynn is the passive income master who can get you started and rocking. Go to his Smart Passive Income blog for years of how to. he also writes extensively about the tools that you might use – like how to build and run a podcast.

I love this one. Great daydreaming or just do it. I was just turned on to this list by a dude that lives in Ho Chi Minh City and runs a global online marketing company. Want a comprehensive list of online businesses that you can buy? The well-named Empire Flippers has that list. I’m going to help you cut to the chase. Here is an interview that Passive Income’s Pat Flynn did with Empire Flippers’ CEO.

Don’t want to start a new business? Maybe you’d rather get out on the road? Head out to Overland to hear about building a long-distance van life – anyone can do this. Sure beats being on your mom’s kitchen table Zoom calls. And, if you want to see some real-life people that are making a living traveling in their van, check out Kara and Nate’s We Bought A Van on YouTube (they will show you a great lifestyle pivot). Back to your new van… Here is the Overland site.

OK, one more. Last week I interviewed Michaela Alexis about her move from advertising agency life to becoming a leader in LinkedIn training. Head over here… How Michaela Alexis Rocks LinkedIn Learning.

Upcoming Advertising Stories episodes will cover African-American advertising and agency ownership (an the poor level of diversity in the industry); eCommerce conversion rate optimization and how to go from ad person to client-side. All of these topics will be interviews with experts.

Use the handy links on this page to subscribe.

A nice thing for me… Feedspot has recognized Advertising Stories as being a top 15 advertising podcast.