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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.

The Best Advertising Ever

Peter · October 22, 2016 · Leave a Comment

Volkswagen: The Best Advertising Ever. Period.

Best advertising ever?

OK, one of the best advertising campaigns – ever. No question. This legendary campaign from the Mad Men days and Doyle Dane Bernbach was, well, fucking brilliant. Great strategy, lean approach, super fine copy (read it oh ye content writers), art direction and photography. These ads were impossible to NOT read.

Please watch this video below: “Remember Those Great Volkswagen Ads?” (especially if you are under 40.) Hear the people who made the ads talk about making some of the smartest advertising ever.

Remember, this campaign pitted Volkswagen’s tiny post-war German car against Ford, Chevrolet, and Dodge. Not an easy play. This is a good, free, marketing lesson for us all. Buzzfeed has all of the ads right here.

The BIG Idea

Advertising has gotten a bit too complicated these days. Words like programatic, bots, content, analytics, SEM, funnels, infographics, authentic and on. We can easily forget that is all about the BIG, impossible to ignore, strategic, yet oh so simple… BIG idea. The idea that captures our attention and excites.

Ode to my audience of business development directors: You’ll win more new business if you… Deliver ideas and insights that capture your prospective client’s attention and excite them. AHA! moments just like Volkswagen did.

BIG ideas follow…

4 Advertising Agencies That Get Video Marketing

Peter · July 27, 2016 · Leave a Comment

Does Your Advertising Agency Get Video Marketing?

You know video is a powerful marketing platform.

You know that people absorb more information from videos than from reading (Why? Maybe it’s our 2016 style mobile phone-driven ADHD…)

You know that video sells because you remember how much those mini shoe demo videos did to increase Zappos’ shoe sales. From a reelseo 2009 interview with Rico Nasol, Zappo’s Content Team Senior Manager: “Those videos are said to have a sales impact of 6 to 30% which has prompted Zappos to strive for 50,000 videos next year (they have about 8,000 currently). That will include 10 fully working studios for 2010 to handle all of it.”

You know that your current and future clients need to know that you know that video is a critical element of today’s advertising world.

You know that people will spend a lot less time looking at your website’s really cool graphics than your creative director thinks. You need to capture their attention – quickly and dramatically. You know that videos do that.

????

So, why don’t more agencies use video to sell themselves? Beats the heck out of me.

4 Advertising Agencies That Get Video Marketing

Here are four agencies that get video. Benchmark them.

By the way, I am not going to write a 750-word SEO-oriented blog post to support my thoughts. Just read my quick intro and watch the videos.

HawkSEM

HawkSEM is an L.A. based search engine marketing company. They lead their website with a video that immediately says… “HawkSEM in 90 Seconds”. They understand ADHD.

FUNNELBOX

FUNNELBOX is a video marketing expert that sells itself via a wide range of informative videos about, yes, video marketing. They deliver these on their website, in their email program, and on YouTube. Even you can learn from them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewJS4Ma07cw

Brand Definition

Output PDX is a new video series from Portland and New York’s Brand Definition. This agency interviews leading Portland marketers to deliver smart thinking and to increase the brand recognition of… Brand Definition. Here is one of my favorite videos. Yes, its true.

Zulu Alpha Kilo

Finally, if you don’t think that video can help sell an advertising agency… visit Zulu Alpha Kilo and see why Zulo was named Ad Age Small Agency of The Year. Here, use their spec work video with your future cheapskate clients. I am sure that Zulo wouldn’t mind.