There was an IBM tv ad called “Deep Intelligence” about a sage who saw relationships in the data that drove sales. He says things like “Greeting cards, Lip Gloss” “Beer/Diapers” “Motor oil/ Turkey franks” we can’t be sure that he knows- all we know is that he knows.

If either the agency, Ogilvy, or IBM was tuned into this web 2.0 thing- they’d have it on YouTube to share- but they don’t. [UPDATE Dec 2010]If you have access to Ad Critic, it’s right here: http://www.adcritic.com/content/ibm-deep-intelligence.html

I’ve always liked this spot- but tonight, it became relevant- someone searching for “mark cuban buys hotel chain” ended up finding us at number 4 in Google- and calling us to see if we could help them sell wine.

This wasn’t search engine optimization- he wasn’t searching for small creative ad agency, or ad agencies in Dayton OH, or even great ad agencies- he wasn’t looking for the next Crispin Porter + Bogusky, or how to pick an ad agency (all terms that we’ve ended up on the first page of Google)- he was looking to find independent thinkers in the hotel industry to market to them as outlets for wine from his LA County vinyard.

There we were: The Next Wave>low budget advertising at number four, because we had combined content in a category that managed to put Mark Cuban and the Drury Inn- into the same place.

Go figure- good technology leads to happy accidents. Once the potential client read that “Our job is to make you more money than you pay us” he was reaching for his phone.

Can you ad agency get you this kind of happy results?