We just took a look on Google for Crispin Porter + Bogusky, we are now ranked 7, that’s from not in the first 120+ search results last week. Found this interesting article from the Miami Herald about the growth of CP+B that’s worth a read:
MiamiHerald.com | 02/13/2006 | Crispin Porter + Bogusky’s rise to the top
Our favorite quote from Chuck Porter: ‘When we were small, we learned to use imagination — not money” - well, not that they are big- they sometimes use a lot of money (not always bad) like for the Burger King Manthem spot that we compared to the Apple Campaign in “Is your agency ego in line with your budget”
Crispin Porter + Bogusky is now over 400 employees, and in two offices (Denver and Miami)- and while the quality of their work continues to be spectacular, the question that Guy Day and Jay Chiat once asked may become relevant one day: “How big can we get before we get bad?”
With the demand so high for CP+B’s magic, they have the opportunity to pick and choose their clients, and to dictate what their clients should do. Gateway didn’t like the advice to scale back their offerings to a simplified product matrix- and now Gateway isn’t a client. Compare the Apple store to the Dell store, and you will quickly see that Apple has a far easier site to navigate and sticks to a simple “Good, better, best” type matrix- Crispin was absolutely correct in their advice to Gateway, and it’s this type of advice that clients should be willing to pay more for, instead of bigger ad budgets.
Another quote from this article stands out:
”They’re really vested and interested in our commercial objectives,” says Chris Rossi, vice president of sales and marketing for Virgin Atlantic Airways North America. ‘You don’t just go in and say `give me a print concept.’ I have a conversation with Alex [Bogusky] about sales and market share. You don’t usually have a conversation with the creative director like that.”
Our first meeting with clients almost always includes the question: “what is your most profitable part of your business- and how can we jump start that” - it’s not about doing advertising for advertising’s sake, it’s about building a relationship on mutual growth and profitability. If your agency isn’t asking these kinds of questions, maybe you should be looking for a new advertising agency.
As the old quote goes “it’s not creative, unless it sells.”
And if you can’t get Crispin Porter + Bogusky to talk to you about growing your business, we know a small shop that would love to talk to you.
We can get you to the top of search, create relationships with your clients, and get people talking about your brand- using more imagination, not money.