by Next Wave Team | Nov 5, 2006 | Advertising, Careers in Advertising, Crispin Porter + Bogusky, Everything You Want to Know About Advertising, Future of advertising, Great Ad Agencies, How To Select An Ad Agency, Marketing & the Web, Minorities in Advertising, Search and Business, Web strategy
I just returned from NYC to attend the first AAAA/AAF Supplier Diversity Trade Fair.
The Next Wave is a Service Disabled Veteran Owned Business, with HUB (Historically Underutilized Business Zone) zone certification. If you are a big agency that’s doing work for the Government, those certifications are very important- it’s Federal law that 3% of your budget be allocated to working with SDVOB and there can be other requirements mandating HUB zone participation.
The Next Wave has been listed in CCR (the Federal data base for eligible contractors) for over 10 years. We have been called by exactly 6 different businesses over those years- either as a last minute effort to include us in a list of “possible subcontractors” in a bid (Leo Burnett for the Army recruiting contract- which went to McCann, and Burson Marsteller on an unnamed project) and a whole bunch of times by the diversity master of the moment at SBC/ATT. It seems that SBC/ATT has very high diversity goals- but very poor follow through.
The list of great ad agencies attending the event was impressive:
Arnold Worldwide
BBDO New York
Leo Burnett, USA
Campbell Ewald
DDB New York
Deutsch
DraftFCB
Element 79 Partners LLC
Euro RSCG Worldwide, New York
Grey Worldwide
GSD&M
JWT New York
The Kaplan Thaler Group
Lowe Worldwide
Merkley Partners
MediaVest
McCann Erickson
Ogilvy & Mather
Publicis New York
Saatchi & Saatchi
TBWA\Chiat\Day
Y&R
and then there was us: The Next Wave.
Since ad agencies don’t typically like to admit to hiring either freelance creative, or another agency to do work for their clients- we took a different path to approach them in partnering for diversity goals: we only talked about helping them understand Web 2.0 and Search Engine Optimization, Direct Mail fulfillment (pimping for a local SDVOB who is also a member of VOB108.org with us) and video production- which we can do in-house, or partner with others to deliver product that qualifies for SDVOB participation points.
Our promo piece included the an analysis of how each of the above agencies compared in number of actual pages indexed by Google. The results were astonishing- of the 22 agencies in attendance, The Next Wave beat all but 4 for accessible, searchable content. Here is what we found:
2 from mccann.com
4 from greyny.com
4 from saatchiny.com
24 from deutschinc.com
29 from element79.com
37 from tbwa.com
39 from leoburnett.com
52 from kaplanthaler.com
58 from bbdo.com
58 from mediavestww.com
94 from publicis-usa.com
114 from gsdm.com
152 from loweworldwide.com
161 from arnoldworldwide.com
193 from yr.com
212 from merkleyandpartners.com
230 from draftworldwide.com
244 from campbell-ewald.com
260 from thenextwave.biz
480 from ddb.com
577 from ogilvy.com
621 from eurorscg.com
2,220 from jwt.com
Note: Crispin Porter Bogusky, the agency that is known for their viral video and “web and new media expertise” only returns 1 page.
Presenting proof that 82% of the Agencies in attendance have interactive departments don’t understand Google isn’t always the best way of making friends, but most of the representatives there seemed genuinely interested and surprised by the results- and the implications for them.
If you work at one of these big agencies, or others, and want to learn how you need to build websites that have content (including your ads) that the general public can find- and interact with, we are available for consulting.
If you want to find out how to tell how many pages Google knows about in your domain do the following:
- Go to Google
- type: site:yourdomainname.tld in the search box
- it will return the numbers of pages it has indexed and what each page is about and it’s title (if your title says “untitled” or “home” and the “about text” is the same for more than one page- you need to call us ASAP).
We believe “Search Engine Marketing” is voodoo, however, we are sure that if your customers can’t find your content in google- you don’t exist for most of the market.
If you are looking for a way to meet your Federally required SDVOB participation for contracts- we can help you with the following NAICS Codes:
54143 Graphic Design
541810 Advertising agencies
541613 Marketing Consulting Services
541511 web development
518210 web hosting
512110 video production
Will this trade fair generate diversity in advertising? Probably not. But it was a step in the right direction.
Some suggestions for future trade fairs: Supply a database of vendor attendees and their services and qualifications to the Agency buyers- and include that information on the name badges. It would be a huge help.
The other suggestion: Hold it in a place that has a history of supporting diversity, instead of the NY Athletic Club- it seemed almost like blasphemy to be in a place that didn’t have African American Members until the 80’s and was so concerned with a dress code.
by Next Wave Team | Oct 22, 2006 | Advertising, Everything You Want to Know About Advertising, How To Select An Ad Agency, Marketing & the Web, Search and Business, Web strategy
We were doing research on cosmetics branding- and asked a friend who is a former “cosmetina” about who is hot.
She suggested looking at “Tony & Tina” so we did a Google search, and another search, and another search- and couldn’t find the company site. What we did find was this:
Buzz Marketing Group: Case Studies: Tony + Tina
Results
Tony Tina experienced a 25% increase in web site traffic, which led to a major site upgrade.
Unfortunately- the agency didn’t provide a link to the site, nor did the search engines. Must be a pretty impressive site- so hip, they want to keep it a secret.
If anyone knows the url to Tony + Tina Cosmetics- please use the comment section to tell us the link.
If you are an agency, and your client doesn’t come before your site in search- shame on you.
by Next Wave Team | Oct 8, 2006 | Advertising, Everything You Want to Know About Advertising, Future of advertising, Future of TV, Marketing & the Web, Web strategy
ABC gets it, CBS gets it, NBC doesn’t.
I admit it, I didn’t put my season pass on my TiVo for Studio 60 on the Sunset strip in until after the premier. That means I’ve got shows 2 and 3 sitting on my TiVo- but no number 1. No problem, I’ll spend $2 and download it from iTunes. Can’t. NBC doesn’t have their shows on iTunes.
So I’ll go to NBC.com and watch streaming video, no problem. Wrong again. No “Viiv technology”- not only am I on a Mac- but, my PC’s aren’t new and fast enough. Way to go NBC (and Microsoft) I’ll just run out and spend $800 on a new PC to watch your pilot, with the advertising- Not.
Which makes you wonder- is NBC even trying to deliver the largest audience for their advertisers, or are they trying to sell new PC’s and Microsofts DRM software that I had to install only to be told my hardware isn’t up to speed.
And the networks wonder why people are turning to file sharing technology like bit-torrent? If I was an advertiser in Studio 60 I’d be fuming at NBC for this gaff. However, the NBC site has such a bad interface that the advertisers probably wouldn’t know where to click in the first place.
If you wonder why NBC is slipping in the ratings pool, this is only one of the reasons. If you don’t allow your community to build around a show, and give your audience a chance to steer their friends to your new programming, you are only hurting yourself.
The future of television will be on demand, over IP and the content is most likely going to come straight from the producers- for this very reason- the networks aren’t doing their job of distribution adequately.
Too bad, ‘cause Studio 60 looks like a winner.
by Next Wave Team | Sep 25, 2006 | Advertising, Everything You Want to Know About Advertising, Future of advertising, Great Ad Agencies, Hot New Creative Agencies, How To Select An Ad Agency, Marketing & the Web, Practical Marketing 101, Public Relations in the Web 2.0 world, Search and Business, Web strategy
Not to say we told you so- but, we’ve been taking heat on this subject lately per the opening of “Brew, a creative collaborative” and the need for agencies to set the tone for the kind of connections they want with their clients via a site.
Hill Holliday in Boston ditched their Flash site for a WordPress blog- and we’ve seen a few other agencies- like Wieden + Kennedy start blogs on the side. We integrated a Blog into this site back in January of 2005- late in the game for us- and saw such good results- we started a seminar on how to “blog for business” first as “Blogosopher” and then after a strategic adjustment for MidWest minds- “Websitetology.”
If we weren’t so busy working on client work- we’d change this whole site into a blog- but it’s that tale of the cobbler’s kids shoes.
Ad Age has finally caught on- that most agency sites don’t have any real content- they produce what we like to call “chest beater sites” that talk about themselves as much as Howard Stern or Paris Hilton talk about themselves. Agencies should know: It’s not about you- it’s never about you- and this is where we try to be different: it’s about what we give our customer. Yes, we try to create the ideas that change the game- the ones that set our clients apart from their competition- making them a category of one. Most agency’s mission statements are interchangeable- as are their websites. In fact- take the brand off the big agencies- and you couldn’t tell the difference.
We’ve included a brief excerpt from the Ad Age article- but, while you can check out Edelman.com- you’ve already found an agency that is different- so check us out too.
Advertising Age - Agencies Short on Real Ideas Should Check Out Edelman.com
Studying agency websites
Take a spin around a few agency websites and you’ll soon see what I mean. They’ve come a long way in a few years in that most are actually professional-looking and have some depth to them…
But taken together the content of the majority of these sites says: “We don’t have a clue how to differentiate ourselves, so we’re going to fall back on some fluffy concepts and jargon.” The number of iterations of “we’re the idea agency” is particularly depressing. Variously they declare their ability to deliver: “ideas,” “big ideas,” “catalytic ideas,” “return on ideas,” “brand ideas,” “leading brand ideas,” “ideas and ideas” and “ideas, ideas, ideas.”
OK, fair enough. So the business is about ideas. Maybe the sites differentiate the shops by actually showing those ideas? No such luck. I found no more than half a dozen examples of ideas worthy of the name. Several sites linked straight from the “idea” slug to ads. Ads aren’t ideas. A couple did try to illustrate the nature of an idea they’d had for a marketer, but that led to embarrassments too — such as the notion that telling consumers of a candy bar to “be great” somehow constituted a big brand idea.
Edelman.com
So what to do? Well, one big idea for a website ad agencies could do worse than emulate can be seen at Edelman.com. The independent global PR shop has turned its site into a blog and podcast landing page full of content. All the content is produced by employees and the 17 hosted blogs run the gamut from CEO Richard Edelman’s 6am to Micropersuasion musings from Steve Rubel (who also writes for Ad Age Digital), from the interesting PR Catalyst from Hoh Kim in Korea to a video blog shot with a cellphone.
The site, according to traffic research from Alexa.com, is attracting more than 250,000 visitors a month. That’s more than any of the ad agencies’ sites and is even beating up on some trade publications’ online offerings.
by Next Wave Team | Sep 15, 2006 | Advertising, BMW Advertising, Brand Relevancy, Everything You Want to Know About Advertising, Future of advertising, Great Ad Agencies, Hot New Creative Agencies, How To Select An Ad Agency, Marketing & the Web, Practical Marketing 101, Public Relations in the Web 2.0 world, Search and Business, Web strategy
In the art of the sound byte- anyone can be made to look like an idiot- I’ve had it happen to me, which is why we consider PR an integral part of the complete approach to marketing, advertising and especially on the Internet.
Before today- Bruce Bildsten was just a copy god in my book. He was one of the stars that came up with the great ideas for BMW Films (note- idiots at BMW took it down) while at Fallon. Fallon has always been one of my favorite big agencies that still acts like they are small.
Then Bildsten went out on his own- and sent some PR out claiming to be launching the next big thing in the advertising world- but, don’t call it an ad agency. It appeared on Ernie Schenck’s blog- which I enjoy greatly. Unfortunately, while Bruce may believe he’s the bomb, and his new agency, Brew, a Creative Collaborative, will be the shizzel, he forgot to make himself accessible.
You can read more on Ernies Blog on this link.
You can see my comments there- and read the previous post on this site here:
http://thenextwave.biz/tnw/?p=246
But- you can also Google Bruce and find this article he wrote for Fast Company- where, in his first line- he makes a PR faux pas- claiming to be a ski bum.
Which brings me to the point I want to make: What you say in print- is now forever findable in search. Does Bruce, newly minted “non-agency” owner, really want to be a ski bum now- or admit that he is in business?
And although it’s not entirely applicable, this post about conducting interviews via e-mail, and posting them on your site- with your spin, before someone else allows them to be pureed at will, might start to make more sense.
http://blogosopher.com/?p=161
Needless to say- I wish Bruce all the luck in his new business, however, If I’m a mega-brand looking for you- I’d rather find your site at the top of Google, than something you wrote years ago where you don’t admit to being in business.
Maybe it’s time to give up skiing and start managing your brand. We’d be glad to help.
Bruce Bildsten: A Creative Approach to Communication Clutter
Bruce Bildsten works as a creative director for Fallon. Because of his work on BMW Films, Bildsten was named to Adweek’s All-Star Creative Team.
I kind of joke that I never read business magazines. I don’t like to admit that I’m in business. I like to pretend that I’m still a ski bum.
The Next Wave is in business- for business, as an ad agency. We eat, sleep and breathe advertising. We will make you a lot more money than you pay us. That’s our promise. Our corporate mission statement isn’t about being new, bigger, better, hipper, cooler-
it’s this: Create lust, evoke trust.
We hope by reading about us, our work and our ideas, you get it.
Feel free to inquire about changing the world.
by Next Wave Team | Sep 15, 2006 | Advertising, Brand Relevancy, Change the world, Creativity, Everything You Want to Know About Advertising, Future of advertising, Great Ad Agencies, Hot New Creative Agencies, How To Select An Ad Agency, Marketing & the Web, Practical Marketing 101, Search and Business, Web strategy
Guy Kawasaki once said “Advertising is the plastic surgery of business,: a procedure to make ugly and old products look good” (“Selling the dream”) and it seems that agency types are still looking for new ways to package their same old mojo:
Ernie Schenck Calls This Advertising?: Bruce Bildsten Opens Brew. The Devil Made Him Do It.
Former Fallon CD, Bruce Bildsten, has opened Brew: A Creative Collaborative. Do not call it an ad agency or I will kill you. Brew is what I see as one of a new and emerging class of creative organizations. Says Bruce: “We are reinventing the creative team for the new communications landscape.” And Bildsten should know about new creative landscapes. While at Fallon, he directly oversaw the creation of BMW Films.“Think of Brew as the nation’s first truly unbundled creative shop—where we assemble best-in-class creative, strategy and media on a custom basis for clients,” said Bildsten.
I’m sure Bildsten is hotter than an Iranian nuclear dump- but his differentiation strategy is one of ignorance of the “new communication landscape”- you see the monster in the closet in marketing is search- the Google brand of search- and if we try to find Mr. Bildsten’s firm- well, we’ll end up looking at beer sites- lots of them.With a name like “Bildsten” he could have been like “Esrati”- a unique name for search marketing- but, I named this firm in 1988- in the days when a “Search engine” was a little old gray haired lady called a librarian and you still went to a phone book to look someone up.
I took some flack on Ernie’s site for suggesting that Mr. Bildsten was sounding like a poser on launch of his new endeavor, however I stand by the idea that the customers (marketers/clients in this case) still need to be able to define your “Creative Collaborative” by the standard vocabulary- “Meta data” of “Advertising Agency” in search- instead of forcing people into fumbling to find you.
I haven’t found the site for “Brew” yet- but I can almost bet that it will built with some search evading technology like Flash or a site full of pretty pictures with proper meta data to identify them.
If you do know the url for “Brew”- please add it in the comments.
Note: it’s been found:brew-creative.com
And if you want to see the Press release, it’s here: http://brew-creative.com/brew_press_release.pdf
Note: Dec 10, 2006, almost three months later, site is still under construction. Internet time doesn’t wait 3 months for content.
Note: Feb 8 2007, still waiting for content.
Note: April 13, 2007 it’s up. All Flash. No RSS. Search? 3 whole pages. Will there be new content from the “new” media gurus? Time will tell.
If you are really interested in new ideas for a new economy, but don’t want the same old tacking on the word “new” to the old wisdom of advertising- you are in the right place- The Next Wave in advertising- since 1988, nothing new about us, other than we were doing this long before Bildsten knew what a browser was.
We’re also available to speak to Ad Clubs around the country on the “new technology” of the “new media” of the “web 2.0 world.”
Sure hope this post has enough keywords in it.
