Ad agencies aren’t playgrounds for big kids with oversized egos. At least not ours, and hopefully not yours.
Sure, we may not wear a suit and tie into the office every day (never confuse fashion with brainpower- Albert Einstein reportedly owned 7 identical black suits and wore them in rotation) and our offices may look cooler than yours- but, advertising is serious business.
Screwing up advertising can kill a business- if you have any doubt- look at what the SuperBowl spot for the shoe retailer “Just for feet” accomplished (if you haven’t heard of “Just for feet” it’s because they went out of business soon after. There is a reason to test ads and do research- but that is another subject- with its pros and cons.
This spot has been removed from youtube, This is the only place I can find it: Just for Feet Kenya mission or temporarily
Agency.com thought they’d try to be hip by releasing a video on You Tube (above) about their process to prep for a pitch to Subway. They thought it would be a “viral”- meaning it would be passed around and watched- and that they would be uber cool- except, they ended up looking like kids with oversized egos on a playground.
Yes, the video is getting watched, yes, I’m writing about it, and no, it’s not worth all of this attention- other than as an example of how not to prepare for a pitch- or what to bring. It’s mostly getting watched by other ad types- and then mocked.
There was on comment that I thought needed to be shared- from someone who calls themselves “Pitch Consultant” (we have a list of advertising agency review consultants on our site if you happen to be looking for one) sharing some insight into what to look for in an agency search- and what to avoid:
Here is yet another example where stupid ad agency people, who obviously were in the middle-lower Bell curve in school, seem to think enthusiasm is more important than intelligence.Is there an insight into how the interactive medium can add value to the physical offering in a way that will build frequency and loyalty, increase check size and same-store sales? A analysis of potential challenges the brand is having on a store-to-store up to national level? Any demonstration that the people at Agency.com understand the fast-food business operationally? How money is made? The role of communications channels? Anything that the clients, who have undoubtedly spent many more hours in different stores, might not have heard before?
Nope. Just a bunch of idiots who walked down the street in midtown Manhattan, stole jobs from entry-level service workers for a day, insulted passers-by, and otherwise did NOTHING to indicate any potential for being anything other than wacky asshole hipsters who condescend to the brand, those that work there, and those who eat there, and certainly aren’t there to make Subway a more successful business. The sad part is that they seem incapable of the shame they should feel.
A ‘passionate’ moron is still a moron. Hire some smart people, Agency. They cost a little more, but you don’t have to buy as many sandwiches or resort to pathetic crap like this.
This is one of the reasons you shouldn’t expect instant results from an ad agency- it takes time to learn your business and your customers. Great advertising solutions don’t typically come on the first campaign, they come later. Wieden + Kennedy didn’t come up with “just do it” for Nike until they had been the agency for a number of years.
Agencies need to fully understand your brand DNA to make a meaningful campaign- or have a radically different approach to communicating with the marketplace. If you are wondering why Crispin Porter + Bogusky keeps hitting home runs, it’s often because they find an exploitable niche that hasn’t been spoken to, and capitalizes on the opening. Hence Mini owners were asked to think of their cars as a personal escape tool with “let’s motor” and Burger King is now the place for the “Meathead” male, aged 18-25 who is most likely to eat fast food 4-5 times per week.
One of the main problems with the Subway account is that the client is splitting up the duties between differnt agencies. Online is just another medium, and if your agency can’t supply the complete message delivery package you should consider another agency.
Subway has been notoriously hard on their ad agencies, with many lawsuits between the franchises and the franchise holder. It’s doubtful that there is an environment for a mutually beneficial relationship between an agency and this client no matter how smart the agency is.
After years of growth, Subway is facing it’s first serious national competition from Quizno’s and others. And while Subway has made great strides in variety of offerings and has become more competitive in hot subs, they have a long way to go when it comes to making their brand relevant.
Could the right agency help contribute to Subway’s success in the market? Absolutely.
Would they come up with the solution in a few days, over subs as portrayed by the people at Agency.com in their video- absolutely not.
I’m not sure if Agency.com was paid to pitch the account- but, there is a lot to be said for “you get what you pay for” and spec campaigns from agencies invited to pitch are the last way you should pick your agency or your strategy.
Our first question to clients is always “what makes you the most money” and how do we maximize that. If you are interested in what the rest of the questions are- call us.
It’s not just advertising that makes the work from Crispin Porter Bogusky interesting- it’s the sites that go with the ads. Not always the best from a search engine standpoint- but always fun.
Here is a partial list from their site of microsites to support campaigns. Almost every ad you see from them has some kind of website to go along with the ad. These links give you insight into the thinking behind each site. CP+B microsites
You’re here because you want to do great advertising, or at least are interested in it. That’s why we’re here- to help business create positive connections and community with people who may want to buy or use their product or service-
so- low and behold, there is a site called, ready:
Hi, welcome to Commercials I Hate.
I started this site in 1997 because the advertising industry thinks we’re stupid.
Commercials assume the worst about us.
Commercials use ugly stereotypes to appeal to the lowest common denominator.
That’s nasty and insulting. Lucky for you, my reader, so am I.
Enjoy,
Nathan Alexander
This is where you don’t want your ads to show up. Luckily, for advertisers- Nathan hasn’t fully discovered the power of web 2.0 and outside of the message boards- there are no RSS feeds.
If you start seeing inbound links to your site from his URL- you may want to consider hiring a new agency (but that would only happen if you follow our rule and have all your spots online, with complete searchable text, and a unique URL which rules out most companies).
In case you are wondering if your ad agency is presenting work that may possibly end up on “Commericals I hate”- Nathan provides a list of cliche’s to avoid here:
Picking an advertising agency can be like dating. It all boils down to chemistry, gut feeling and finding a relationship that works for you.”The process starts out as a linear, logical one. It ends up with gut feel and intuitive fit,” says Cleve Langton, chairman of the American Association of Advertising Agencies. “The best process is the one that most closely simulates a marriage. Chemistry is what decides it at the end of the day.”
We agree with the idea of a marriage- but it’s not chemistry that makes the difference- it’s mutual benefits- chemistry just makes it easier.
Just like a marriage- trust and respect are key- as is honest open communication and a willingness to try new things.
Afterall, you didn’t hire a new agency just to continue doing what you were doing with the old one, did you?
But as you read further into the article, the suggestions start going south:
The process has three parts:
Contact agencies and find out the minimum size budget for its client base.
Inquire about the areas in which an agency has the most experience before you say what industry you’re in. If an agency doesn’t have experience in your industry, look elsewhere.
Metrics refer to the increase in sales or foot traffic that an agency has generated for a client in the your industry. If an agency will not disclose that information, that’s a bad sign. A client should seek an agency that’s not afraid to make projections of benefits based on their experience.
Start with up to 20 agencies, experts say, and then whittle that to six or fewer. The final round should include three agencies. Avoid limiting your options to two, just in case one of them backs out late in the process, Langton says.
In the final stage, the agencies should come up with some creative ideas for you to see.
We think there is a better way- and it doesn’t start out with your budget size now. Afterall, when you get married, often times you don’t have much to work with do you? The idea is to grow together- shared risk, shared rewards- because if there is no risk- there is no reward (at least not in business).
So- instead, start identifying the type of work you like. Things you are comfortable with- and put together a “portfolio” of aspirations for your companies marketing. Write your business plan- and show what you hope to achieve through the relationship- so that you and your potential new agency can both be looking toward the same thing. Advertising isn’t instant gratification- it all takes time and patience. If you both start out with the same vision- you have a better chance of reaching it.
Next, identify agencies who have clients similar in size to you- then look one step below. That’s right- look for the one who needs your account more, because you will be higher on the priority list. Then look at the work they’ve done- does it look like the work you’ve got in your book? Look at their website- is it up to date, how does if feel? Is it about the work, or about the agency? Agencies that talk too much about themselves- are just like a bad date.
Then, and only then- ask for a meeting. Be totally honest about what the meeting is about. Ask to see some work they’ve done for other clients- and discuss the process, the restraints, the budgets (if they’ll share) and get a feel for how the agency approaches a project. Don’t ask about what they would do for you- or any kind of spec campaign. You wouldn’t ask for sex on a first date, would you? At least not from someone you respect.
At the end of this meeting, you should know if their vision for growth, could be part of yours.
The next step is to offer a small project, with a small budget to the agencies you felt most comfortable with. Better yet- give them all the same project - and see what they come up with.
Remember to evaluate the qualtity of the ideas- it’s more about the process at this point- and the relationship. How well they listened- and how well they shared their ideas.
For this marriage to work- communication is key.
We have a page of “agency search firms” on this site- you can check many of their sites for their methodology- or you can try it our way.
Either way- the cost of a failed relationship can be huge- there are no such things as pre-nups for hiring an agency.
This “news section” of our site is a blog about advertising- it’s our way of letting clients and potential clients what’s on our minds when it comes to advertising. It also gets us to the top of Google and improves our search results and brings a lot of visitors to our site. Can’t beat that.
We are students of advertising- we pay attention to what is happening in the business. We believe it’s essential for us to know what leading thinkers are thinking about, who did what campaign, what the strategy is, and if it’s working. To do that- we read other advertising blogs- and often, we’re disappointed- not in the content- but in the tools they use.
Web 2.0 depends on “building community” with your readers. That’s what the little comments section at the bottom of each post is all about. It’s a way to become part of a discussion- and to build connections with people who share your interests. Unfortunately, many of the ad blogs don’t include tools to keep those conversations going- and it frustrates me no end.
Example: Ernie Schenck, co-founder of Pagano Schenck & Kay, winner of all the big ad awards, and now a freelance creative, has an insightful blog Ernie Schenck calls this advertising? He has a ton of bright readers, who comment often- however, Ernie uses a hosted TypePad solution- and has no way of notifying commenters that there have been additional comments on their thread. In WordPress, this is the subscribe to comments plug-in, and it can help your comment count (user generated content) grow considerably- fostering long discussions on a subject (we have one post with 109 comments at last count). Alas, Ernie is another great creative- with minimal understanding of the technology. Room 116 at VCU suffers from this same issue.
Same can be said of Mark Silveira’s “Ordinary Advertising” blog- again, using a non-wordpress platform, the site almost never is able to post comments without an e-mail to Mark. He doesn’t post that often, but I keep it in my feed reader because I liked his book “Ordinary advertising – and how to avoid it like the plague.” WordPress has an excellent plug-in called “Spam Karma II” that allows you to make sure you aren’t being comment spammed- and post immediately (without moderation) to keep your site discussions humming without requiring your attention to every comment (you can still blacklist bad words, or go back in and edit comments easily).
Some sites use Blogger- like “The ranch”- the University of Texas ad blog. Blogger ticks me off because to comment- they want you to set up your blogger blog. Just like good advertising, a good blog back-end shouldn’t force you to do something you don’t want to do (or make it difficult to contact you).
Luckily- all these sites can switch to WordPress- since there is a built in import and translate function for Blogger, Dotclear, LiveJournal, Moveable type and Text Pattern- there is also a way to import via RSS – which could be used for importing from some other arcane solution. See more about importing on the codex.
While there are successful blogs using tools other than WordPress- the key to good open source software is the size of the development community. The bigger the community- the more developers, bug testers, bug squashers, theme developers, plug-in writers etc. WordPress seems to be the technology with momentum- and, it also allows for a pretty simple translation to Drupal if you need your site to do much more (although the commenting functions in Drupal still don’t work as well as WordPress- see D’Arcy Normans site for info on making the change).
WordPress also has an amazingly simple, yet powerful interface- and allows for multiple authors on the same blog- with different levels of access- making it a great tool for any agency to get their entire staff into the content creation process. We’ve been so successful with results for our clients with WordPress that we now offer a seminar called Blogosopher, but soon to be rechristened “Websitetology” (due to the Midwest’s fear of the word “blog” it’s not considered a serious business tool by the local Luddite community). We’re available to come speak to your Ad Club chapter with an abbreviated version of the seminar- and/or to give the seminars (a basic and advanced course- each 3.5 hours long) to your membership- contact us for details.
Using the right tools to blog is like using the right media to reach your audience. The creative types who have taken the leap to use a blog to communicate their message to the masses are all smart people- just not all are tech savvy. Hopefully, this post will lead them to a better blog- and a larger audience.
It’s political speech- and it’s protected- and you may or may not agree with the content- but if you want a primer on how to get your message out without spending big bucks- the video on FreewayBlogger shows you how to use paint, cardboard and a few overpasses to get your message out. Wild posting is common in big cities- but, you have to be careful of local laws and regulations.
Check out the link above.
