by Next Wave Team | Jul 14, 2006 | Advertising, Brand Relevancy, Creativity, Crispin Porter + Bogusky, Everything You Want to Know About Advertising, Future of advertising, Great Ad Agencies, Guerrilla Campaigns
The Craziest Ad Guys In America
Business Week gives CP+B the title “The craziest ad guys in America”- when in fact, it’s the other agencies that are crazy. Corporate conglomerates have zero to do with creative solutions to business problems- they cause business problems.
When The Next Wave came into this world, we avoided the words “advertising” and “agency” for a reason- the solution isn’t always advertising (in fact, most of the time- it’s not advertising at all) and we’re not a temp agency to come in and solve your problems so that we can go on our way when the client thinks they have everything under control. We chose the words “marketing • innovation” because according to Peter Drucker- that’s all there is to business. Even our tagline sounds different than most agencies- “Create lust • Evoke trust”- that’s what it’s all about- but, maybe we should also add- “make buzz” - because as Alex Bogusky says “I like that they are talking about the work. If they aren’t talking, then your brand is dead.”
In the media multiverse, it’s impossible to stand out if you do work that doesn’t create an emotional response. CB+P is willing to risk alienating some customers in order to stimulate the core buyers. This is the absolute opposite of what the big corporate agencies are willing to do. They prefer to buy buzz- because they can mark it up- the problem is buzz can’t be bought anymore.
If there is one thing to be learned from Crispin’s work, it’s that every opportunity to open a discussion with the market is exploited- from bags and window decals, to rewriting employee manuals. Read the article from Business Week- and come back and share your observations about how they approach their clients’ challenges.
Thank you.
by Next Wave Team | Jul 14, 2006 | Advertising, Careers in Advertising, Creativity, Crispin Porter + Bogusky, Everything You Want to Know About Advertising, Future of advertising, Future of TV, Great Ad Agencies, Guerrilla Campaigns, Low Budget Advertising, Marketing & the Web, Media, Viral Marketing, Web strategy
Animusic - Pipe Dream - Google Video
The idea of the 500 channel world should be long purged from anyone’s vocabulary at this point- there will be content to watch until the world goes into self-cleaning oven mode- or freezes over like a hockey rink- but, there may not be many humans in the actual show. Take a look at Animusic videos of music making machines- or go rent the movie “Final fantasy” or start looking into virtual worlds like “Second life” and you realize- we can do much cooler things in a virtual world. By taking scenes from video games to illustrate stories, Machinima, anyone with a creative bone in their body will be able to create stories with a look equivalent to a Hollywood movie.
The big question will remain- what to watch? This is where the power of crowds and agents of influence will come into play. The best advertising agencies will be the ones who can guide the masses into unwittingly being their agents of mass propaganda. Strike the right nerve- and the reaction is exponential compared to the force of the first strike.
The key to the future will be how will these provocateurs be paid- in the free wheeling virtual world? Agencies have relied on the idiotic media commission system for too long. Will it come down to some kind of pay-per-click (or the 2.0 version- commission on sale)- or some other formula?
Crispin Porter + Bogusky in Miami has started to take equity positions in companies they work with- which should make people in corporate marketing positions start wondering how long they will be able to hang on to their cushy “C” level jobs where they just play General to the mercenary agencies that are hired to do the job or be the scapegoats.
Big changes are coming- all thanks to the shift in power from the ones with the most money- to those with the best ideas- and tools that put the power in everyone’s hands.
What do you think?
by Next Wave Team | Jun 29, 2006 | Advertising, Design, Everything You Want to Know About Advertising, Great Ad Agencies
Advertising Age - HOOVER TO DYSON: IT’S ON NOW
Dyson and Hoover have been having a fight over who sucks more. That’s suck as in vacuum- and which one cleans your carpets better.
Hoover is the old business- been around forever. In fact, in Dyson’s home country, England, or the United Kingdom as the Brits like to refer to themselves, when you vacuum your floor- it’s called “hoovering”- so how could Hoover end up being threatened by this upstart, premium priced vacuum? Simple- it’s got nothing to do with who cleans better- it’s all about who understands marketing better. The winner is Dyson- hands down.
Both have worked with great ad agencies- Dyson was with Fallon before switching to Element79, Hoover is now with TBWA/Chiat/Day - so they are all obviously aware that advertising helps sell products that suck.
As an owner of several vacuum cleaners- and one and a half dogs that shed more than snow falls in the Rockies, I can tell you that if you emptied the bag as often as you emptied the Dyson canister- I’m sure you wouldn’t lose suction either. We empty the Dyson every time we vacuum- we empty the bag when it’s all the way full (which is about once every 10 times we vacuum). And, no, this isn’t scientific fact; it’s just a common sense observation.
The reason Dyson is killing Hoover- and everyone else is design- pure and simple. They glamorized the lowly vacuum into a fashion accessory- and put a status price tag on their product. Hoover was still selling it as an appliance to hide in the closet. Just look at the product graphics on the two machines- Dyson hasn’t mucked their lines up with a million messages- your typical Hoover looks more like a NASCAR- with stickers everywhere.
Now- if you still don’t believe me- consider this. Up until about 2000 or so, Dyson licensed their same design to a US distributor- who had the product made in black with purple accents- it had a stupid name like “Phantom”- and looked like a NASCAR too- just like all the other machines- only it cost a bit more. It didn’t sell worth a crap. Then Dyson pulled the agreement, came to the US with their signature yellow and gray machine- with simple graphics, hiked the price, did classy ads- and now everybody wants one.
That’s proof- good design helps sell products that suck.
What do you think?
by Next Wave Team | Jun 26, 2006 | Advertising, Crispin Porter + Bogusky, Everything You Want to Know About Advertising, Future of advertising, Great Ad Agencies, Retail, VW advertising
Advertising Age - GM Moves $225 Million Cadillac Account to Modernista
The day of the Mega-Agency for Mega-Accounts may be nearly over. Car accounts, once only could go to the largest network agencies, with their large overhead, and even larger expense accounts.
Cadillac left Leo Burnett for upstart Modernista who has handled the Hummer account since it’s launch. Similar to the Crispin Porter + Bogusky win of VW, the move followed a move of the marketing chief from one brand to the other.
Unlike VW, Cadillac has a brand that has credible product- but is still not connecting with all its target markets with the right voice. The Burnett produced fashion show spot for the new Escalade that aired in the SuperBowl was blamed for the switch- but, once again- car clients are looking for excitement about their brand- generated by advertising, as opposed to being generated by the merits of the vehicle.
Toyota sells a ton of vehicles in this country- with the most unremarkable advertising- but a high quality, high value, reliable product.
We believe that there are more cost effective ways to market motor vehicles- including a total rebuilding of the dealer networks. Look to what Harley Davidson, Apple and Nike have done with their brand experience retail destinations for a look at what the future of automotive retailing should look like.
It’s not the agency that’s the problem in most cases- it’s the manufacturers who still haven’t let go of their old ways of doing business. The questions is can small ad agencies keep the creative energy and freshness once they land one of these monster accounts- and come under the watchful eye of the old school masters in a new school world?
It will be interesting to see what Modernista does with Cadillac- and if they will be able to hold on to Hummer too.
What do you think?
by Next Wave Team | May 20, 2006 | Everything You Want to Know About Advertising, Great Ad Agencies, Guerrilla Campaigns, Web strategy
great ad agencies - Google Search
Right now- we’re number one on Google.
Damn. I guess it pays to understand the web.
That’s number one of “95,000,000 for great ad agencies.”
In case you are wondering- the guys above us in the blue band- pay money for that position- and if you click on their links, it costs them money. The same goes for the ones on the right. Don’t pay for search engine optimization- just hire the number one organic search result for great ad agencies if you want to be on top of search.
by Next Wave Team | May 17, 2006 | Advertising, Everything You Want to Know About Advertising, Future of advertising, Great Ad Agencies, Guerrilla Campaigns, Marketing & the Web, Web strategy
We offer the list of “Agencies that aren’t The Next Wave” as a public service- since so many ad agencies still don’t know how to build a web site that indexes in search. Even though we don’t think anyone should use an agency that can’t be found in Google even if you have their name, address and phone number - we figure if we lead you to them- maybe you’ll consider using us instead. PDF of flyer
Yet, when we get right down to it- the ad agencies in Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus and Dayton aren’t our competition - the ones in NYC, LA, Portland OR, Miami FL, Chicago etc- are the ones that The Next Wave would prefer to compete with. We believe we can do a better job than 86.7% of the “big city” firms.
So, today- we decided to go guerrilla and hand out a flyer to attendees of the Dayton Ad Club professional develoment seminar - offering to teach our competition how to build a site that will get their customers to find them- instead of us.
We pulled a list of 300 search terms for other agencies off our webstats- amounting to thousands of searches (many different people used the same term to find the other agencies on our site)- and put “IF YOUR AGENCY IS ON THIS LIST- YOU NEED TO TAKE THIS SEMINAR” for our Blogosopher seminar.
The rest of the copy read:
Customers looking for these agencies came to www.thenextwave.biz this year.
If you want to learn how to build a site that search engines love– and that any idiot can maintain– this seminar is well worth your $99. And if you are using any of these agencies for your site– you should come too (to learn what they are doing wrong).
However, if you want potential customers to keep going to The Next Wave site– that’s fine too.
Either way, we’ll take your money.
As usual- the other agency people still don’t know what to make of us- offering to share our “Trade secrets” - but, we’re firm believers that better competition makes us stronger. If you want to know how to get to the top of Google, and sell a ton of stuff by being the coolest kid on the block- we highly recommend you hire us (or at least come to the Blogosopher seminar) but feel free to check our competition too- it just makes us look better.
What do you think?
