Keeping up with mobile technology and how it impacts consumer behavior is important because it inevitably effects how ad agencies will be reaching prospects in the near future.
“Most marketers are still struggling to figure out how to truly capitalize on the opportunities represented by long-form video and — more recently — social content. Now, a new imperative is clear, especially for those spending heavily on TV. Content and experiences that move seamlessly from one screen to another are an absolute must.” Jeremy Lockhorn, VP Emerging Media, Razorfish
Consumers’ use of emerging media driven by new technologies is moving at such a lightning pace that it’s difficult for agencies and the brands they represent to keep up. There is also the tendency for marketers to “over-focus” on things like television, mobile and social media as stand alone mediums rather than fully comprehending consumer behavior and creating a multiscreen strategy.
Emerging media and new technology also impacts business development for ad agencies. There is a need to understand how prospects are using new technology such as mobile and web-enabled devices. Plus there is a paradigm shift in business development for agencies from outbound new business tactics to inbound marketing. Agencies will need to be able to effectively reach prospective clients through a multiscreen new business strategy.
To better understand the impact of new technology and its rapidly evolving use of consumers here in the U.S., digital agency giant, Razorfish, partnered with Yahoo Mobile to conduct a study of mobile habits.
Here are some of the highlights from this study:
80% of respondents are mobile multitasking while watching TV.
70% of respondents who multitask do so at least once a week, with nearly half (49%) reporting everyday multitasking.
60% check their phones at least “once or twice” during the course of a TV show, and 15% stay on the mobile Web for the full duration of the show.
The top 5 categories for multitasking: 1. Reality 2. News 3. Comedy 4. Sports 5. Food
94% of multitaskers engage in some kind of mobile communication. In order — They are text, talking, email, social networking and IM.
60% of multitaskers are accessing additional content of some type.
44% is unrelated to what’s on TV versus only 38% related to TV.
Survey respondents were more likely to state that they frequently engaged in multitasking during TV ad breaks.
36% of multitaskers use their connected devices for looking up information on a commercial they just saw.
Click on the following link to read Jeremy’s article and additional information regarding the Razorfish and Yahoo Mobile Study: ”Forget Mobile – Think Multiscreen”
An infographic can be a great way for small to midsize ad agencies to communicate their unique position in the marketplace.
Infographics is derived from two words: ‘information’ and ‘graphics’, and stands for the graphical representation of data and information.
Why infographics for ad agency new business?
Visually create a positioning for your agency - “A picture is worth a thousand words.”
Gain a positioning of expertise within a particular industry or discipline.
If you include an “embed code” for your infographic, it can help your agency’s website or blog site gain rankings for a particular niche. l
Infographics are easily shared and become viral that will also increase online traffic and build awareness for your agency.
Voltier Digital agency located in Delray Beach, FL, is a content marketing agency that has been creating lots of buzz for themselves through the use of Infographics. One of their newest inforgraphics was recently highlighted in this Mashable article, Inbound Marketing vs. Outbound Marketing [INFOGRAPHIC] building a great deal of exposure for the agency.
“At Voltier Digital, we aim to stay on top of new inbound marketing tactics. Infographics have become super hot over the past 24 months and we are excited to share our experience and to give you a little direction on how to execute world-class infographics for your brand.”
Voltier Digital shares some helpful tips on how to create your own infographic in 7 simple steps:
This guest post is written by Bret Giles, president of agencyside, which offers training and consulting to sell and implement digital marketing services. It’s all exclusively designed for small to mid-size advertising, marketing and PR agencies. One of the premier agency side events is BOLO 2011, October, 9-11, Scottsdale, AZ. A discount for Fuel Line readers is available by using the code MGass. I hope you’ll plan to join me there.
Bret Giles
My backyard is afoul with these pesky rodents intent on ruining what I’ve spent so much energy planting. They just won’t go away; in fact, I fear they grow in number while their teeth become sharper and their devastation more obvious. They are invading my space and I’ve done little to prevent it.
Until now.
As an owner of a mid-size agency, I’m ready to passionately protect my turf and start a little invasion of my own.
Media companies are not agencies – they have hidden agendas and a distinct bias in media selection. Technology companies like Google are not agencies – they protect their valuation by positioning themselves as a technology to investors, yet they pretend to our clients they are creative strategists capable of pulling off complex campaigns. And unfortunately they have found a strong ally in procurement offices across American companies.
They are invading our space because their own backyards bear less fruit than needed to sustain juggernaut growth (or prevent death in the case of some media companies). They know that as marketing budgets are wrestled from people who look beyond the numbers, they will continue to win plum assignments and perform adequately to the expectations of the unsuspecting buyer.
As the story goes, the buyers commoditize our agency offerings and we are relegated to discussions of efficiency against the likes of Meredith, Hearst and Google. And yet we have some tricks up our sleeve, right?
By focusing our energy in owned and earned media we feed ourselves, as these media are mostly fee-based (money to us) rather than the media-based alternative of paid media. As an added bonus, we lessen our reliance on the very entities that invade our turf, thus cutting off their food supply. On top of that, we can infiltrate their backyards by becoming publishers on behalf of our clients. After all, conventional media no longer controls the media and conventional wisdom no longer holds value.
It’s time to protect our backyard and organize a small invasion of our own.
In addition to co-founding an agency, I also helped start agencyside, an organization dedicated to serving small- to mid-size agencies and the issues we face. We put on an annual conference called BOLO that will further discussions around the role of the small- to mid-size agency and where we can truly add value in a vastly changing backyard. There is actually tremendous opportunity right now and I think we’ve lined up some great talent to lead forums around that opportunity.
I hope you will join me and about 175 other independent agency owners and executives to further this discussion. You can get a full account of our agenda at www.BOLO2011.com.
What are you doing to prepare your agency for the digital revolution?
Digital training is critical for the traditional small-to midsize advertising agencies. The strategic partnerships with digital shops have all gone by the wayside, mainly because digital agencies don’t need them any longer.
To quote Aaron Reitkopf, North American CEO of digital agency Profero, “There’s never been a better time to be in advertising, and there’s never been a worse time.”
Advertising agencies aren’t changing of their own accord, they are being changed. Rising to meet the escalating demands for digital, a lot of agencies are now requiring that almost all of their employees develop digital skills.
Kristina Slade, made the radical decision to leave her job as associate creative director at Omnicom Group’s TBWA \/Chiat\/Day, Los Angeles, to become creative director at San Francisco-based digital agency AKQA. In a recent Ad Age interview, Slade shared her challenges. Here are some of the highlights and challenges she expressed in that interview:
“… there are better [online] opportunities for brands and consumers.”
“Jumping in and absorbing all that tech info was the first hurdle.”
“Digital is a self-curated experience, so if someone didn’t engage with you, it just didn’t happen. It’s about what can a brand give someone.”
“It was just getting behind the scenes of technology so we could make smarter choices and creative work that was better by leveraging all the potential of different platforms.”
“… we actually have metrics and can prove what we can get for every dollar spent in digital.”
“The traditional shop is getting smaller. It’ll look like a hybrid shop.”a
E-mail is still relevant as a tool for ad agency new business but use it wisely because prospects are extremely busy just like you.
With the popularity of my blog, I receive a large number of emails daily. I’ve learned to better filter all of the invitations to review, speak, advise and consult as well as the emails that pitch products, services and other opportunities. It isn’t unusual to receive well over a hundred of these type of emails daily.
What I’ve learned from my own experience, the type of email pitches that enlist my response, have helped me to be more effective in using emails for ad agency new business.
Below is an example of a great emailed invitation/pitch. One of the few that I personally responded to almost immediately.
Dear Michael
I run a small events company in Johannesburg South Africa and we have had it on our radar to run an Advertising Innovation Day for some time, we have had good success with events dealing with Social Media and we have had surprisingly a number of delegates from advertising agencies attend a few of them. Please see our website www.classicevents.co.za to give you an idea of what we have run before, please excuse our site – it is due for an upgrade which I am busy attending to now.
I believe there would be a market for talks in Johannesburg and Cape Town and possibly Durban as well, these are the tree main centres where there are a number of agencies, the bulk of the agencies are Johannesburg and Cape Town based but Durban does have some smaller agencies and offices of the larger agencies. I could do some research for you and share lists of agencies here and possibly conduct a test to see if agencies are keen to attend.
Do you have standard speaker fees or would you entertain a profit share or delegate rate share. Please could you also give me an idea of when you could come across for a week or so, I’m guessing you’d surely want a couple of days to relax and see some of the country whilst here.
Looking forward to hearing from you.
Best regards
NIGEL BROWN
Here are the reasons why this is such a good email that hopefully will provide some helpful tips as you reach out to your prospective clients using email.
Use a person’s first name. Personal is always better than formal when you are reaching out through email. Formal seems cold and indifferent, often appears spammy. Nigel starts off his email pitch to me simply with “Dear Michael.”
Create a pitch letter that is concise and brief. My heart always sinks we I get a long email from someone. Even though it is much easier to bang out a lengthy email but it is also discourteous. Being short and concise take effort on the part of the sender but it is always appreciated and leaves a positive impression upon the person you are trying to reach out to. Nigel condensed his email down to 3 short paragraphs – perfect!
The request is very clear as well as the invitation on how he would like me to respond.
I can’t tell you the number of times that I receive requests like this and have to search for the contact info info. That is discourteous and leaves a negative impression. But it occurs more often than not. Nigel made it easy for me to follow-up by including all of the various channels that I can make contact with him. Though I didn’t list them here for obvious reasons, Nigel provided me with his email address, cell phone and direct dial office numbers, fax and Skype numbers and an active link to his company’s website.
Don’t over pitch in the subject line. Nigel’s subject line was very effective in getting my attention: Query to explore you coming to South Africa for a series of talks. Who wouldn’t want an opportunity to visit South Africa. But also, Nigel’s invitation wasn’t salesy. It was a simple invitation to explore the possibility, a gauge of my interest. He left the response totally in my court. He didn’t use it as a precursor for a “warm call” that he would initiate.
Nigel was proactivein providing information about his company. In the email he provided me with a hyper link to his company’s website knowing that I would want to investigate credentials.
Don’t overuse flattery. The owner of the first ad agency that I ever worked for, used a lot of flattery in conversation’s with prospects. It always came off as insincere, almost sleazy. Most of the time flattery can be implied without even stating anything and is more effectual.
Research shows websites influence 97% of clients’ purchasing decisions.
Your agency’s website is your online brochure, the place to present credentials, capabilities and most importantly your agency’s creative work. Not only is it the place prospects and clients go to learn more about your agency and its services, but it has a huge impact on their ultimate purchase decision.
For professional services firms, “74% of buyers report the service provider’s website holds at least “some influence” over their ultimate decision to buy services from the provider.” – Raintoday.com
An agency’s website provides the opportunity for your prospective clients to look under-the-hood, kick the tires and check out the upholstery on their own timetable.
With well-designed websites prospects should be able to:
Establish capabilities and professional credentials: through professional design, writing, and arrangement of content.
Establish that your agency is worthy of consideration: through an overview of your services, client list, biographies of staff, case studies that show how you’ve helped clients and a sampling of your creative work.
Establish your agency as an authority: through a clear point of differentiation and expertise, essential elements for creating an appeal and a necessity of winning new clients beyond your local market.
Your agency’s website is the place for:
Press releases – Announcements about new hires, new client acquisitions, awards and other agency news.
Current clients and work experience.
Staff profiles.
Highlight case studies, testimonials, advertising and marketing campaigns.
Resources such as articles, white papers, research findings and presentations.
Agency services. Provide a clear understanding of what services your agency provides.
Show casing your agency’s creative capabilities.
Job postings, staff recruitment highlighting your agency’s culture.
Highlight your agency’s associations such as with the 4As, MAGNET, TAAN or other agency affiliations.
Links to your agency’s social media platforms such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.
Facts about your agency. Provide a link to an easy to print, downloadable PDF Agency Fact Sheet on your agency.
A call-to-action. Provide a path to engagement for your visitors. Include information about first steps for a prospect, such as a brand or market audit.
Contact information. Make sure that prospects know who to contact for new business other than info@.
Remember also that usability is a critical success factor for websites. If yours isn’t easy to use it is a very poor reflection of your agency and prospects will simply leave it. Users are highly goal-driven on the Web. The ultimate failure of a website is to fail to provide the information users are looking for.
A final tip that I hope you find helpful: Businesses that blog get 55% more website traffic than those that don’t.
What are you doing to prepare your agency for the digital revolution?
Rising to meet the escalating demands for digital, a lot of agencies are now requiring that almost all of their employees develop digital skills. According to a recent Wall Street Journal article, the bigger agencies are spending roughly $750,000 to $1.5 million on digital training programs this year.
Founded in 1996, eMarketer, with its articles, charts and analysis, provides a whole library of resources for ad agencies wanting to keep up with the latest trends and best practices.
The CEO and co-founder of eMarketer, Geoff Ramsey, worked previously at several large New York ad agencies, including TBWA and Ogilvy & Mather, where he ran multinational accounts for brands including Procter & Gamble, Kraft Foods, M&M Mars and AT&T. Geoff is often called upon to speak at major digital and media events including he American Association of Advertising Agencies (4A’s), Association of National Advertisers (ANA).
Geoff recently shared the following presentation that I thought would be of interest, Key Digital Trends for 2011:
Write something memorable, that stands out and provides inspiration to others.
I’m reading constantly and often find and keep the most memorable quotes from my daily reading. Here’s a collection that I thought would be of interest as they relate specifically to digital and social media marketing. I hope you find inspiration, a spark for your creativity and to take the time to write something memorable.
Here are my favorite digital and social media marketing quotes:
“There’s never been a better time to be in advertising, and there’s never been a worse time.” – Aaron Reitkopf, North American CEO of digital agency Profero
“We have technology, finally, that for the first time in human history allows people to really maintain rich connections with much larger numbers of people.” – Pierre Omidyar, founder, eBay
“The Internet has been the most fundamental change during my lifetime and for hundreds of years.” – Rupert Murdoch, media mogul
“Online advertising doesn’t have to be a “wild west.” – Benjamin Edelman, Harvard Business School
“Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge.” - Jimmy Wales, founder, Wikipedia
“Social media is a savior not a nemesis, an asset not a liability, a time saver not a time killer for ad agency new business” – Michael Gass, new business consultant for advertising agencies
“In the 21st century, the database is the marketplace.” - Stan Rapp, MRM Partners Worldwide
“Content Doesn’t Win. Optimized Content Wins” – Li Evans, search marketing guru
“Finding new ways, more clever ways to interrupt people doesn’t work.” – Seth Godin, best selling marketing author
Content marketing is a commitment, not a campaign. – Jon Buscall
The rule of 5 is that each and every content development undertaking should produce content assets that can be used at least 5 different ways. – Ardath Albee
“Think like a publisher, not a marketer.” – David Meerman Scott, marketing and leadership speaker
“What happens when you combine blogs, Google and millions of dissatisfied customers? An e-mob.” – Bob Garfield, advertising author
“The web attacks traditional ways of doing things and elites, and this is very uncomfortable for traditional businesses to deal with.”– Sir Martin Sorrell, CEO, WPP Group
“SEO is a marketing function for sure, but it needs to be baked into a product, not slapped on like icing after the cake is baked.” - Duane Forrester, author and conference speaker
“You can buy attention (advertising). You can beg for attention from the media (PR). You can bug people one at a time to get attention (sales). Or you can earn attention by creating something interesting and valuable and then publishing it online for free.” – David Meerman Scott, marketing speaker
“Blog policy at Microsoft is just two words: Blog Smart.” – Lawrence Liu, senior technical product manager, Microsoft
“Don’t measure what you can. Measure what you should.” – Philip Sheldrake, blogger, marketer, web analytics specialist
“People influence people. Nothing influences people more than a recommendation from a trusted friend. A trusted referral influences people more than the best broadcast message. A trusted referral is the Holy Grail of advertising.” - Mark Zuckerber, Facebook
“In our business, whenever there’s a disruption, our clients need guidance.” – Michael Roth, CEO, Interpublic Group
“Almost overnight, the Internet’s gone from a technical wonder to a business must.” – Bill Schrader, businessman
“Clients don’t care about the labor pains; they want to see the baby.” – Tim Williams, founder of consultancy Ignition
“It’s hard to find things that won’t sell online.” – Jeff Bezos, founder, Amazon
“An expert is a person who has made all the mistakes that can be made in a very narrow field” Niels Bohr, Danish physicist
“Facebook Fan Pages are email newsletters with smaller pictures.” – Jay Baer, author, social media strategist
“Our power has been matched and, in some categories, rivaled by user influence,” Nick Brien, CEO of Interpublic Group’s McCann
“It’s been said that advertising agencies aren’t changing, they are being changed.” – Unkown
And my favorite: “It is the people who figure out how to work simply in the present, rather than the people who mastered the complexities of the past, who get to say what happens in the future.” Clay Shirky, author, professor
Small to mid-size ad agency owners and executives need to be better equipped with digital technology. It will not only impact agency business but also new business development.
I having a discussion with the creative director of a small agency who is in his early 50′s. He was expressing his frustration with changing digital technology and its impact upon his agency and the advertising industry.
He said, ”I have no problem creating a print ad but I don’t know where to even start to create an ad for something like the iPad.”
I asked him if he was ready to retire. His answer was no. Then, I raised the question, “what are you going to do to get up to speed?” He didn’t have an answer.
Big agencies know that digital training is now critical. Rising to meet the escalating demands for digital, most of them are now requiring that almost all of their employees develop digital skills. According to a recent Wall Street Journal article, the bigger agencies are spending roughly $750,000 to $1.5 million on digital training programs this year.
“We can no longer just acquire [digital] firms; it’s just not good enough,” says Bob Jeffrey, JWT’s chief executive.
WPP’s Ogilvy & Mather has upped their digital training by 150% this year through the following programs to help to help workers acquire digital skills:
Hyper Island—A workshop for senior executives including client services, creative, planning and production on the implications of digital on the business.
Digital Acceleration—A content-driven training program that provides in-depth learning on key new digital trends/offerings such as Internet search, customer relationship management, mobile marketing, analytics, etc.
Digital Boot Camp—aka “Digital 101,” an agency-wide program offered monthly that covers the basics of digital channels including social media, digital production, etc.
Associates Program—A training program for entry-level employees that provides them with cross-training across agency disciplines with digital as a key component.
Ogilvy Digital Lab—Special events featuring emerging media and innovation. Includes bringing in industry experts in specific digital areas—such as, Mobile Social Day, Google Day, Out of Home Innovation, etc.
I love this quote by author Clay Shirky, particularly as I think about how the rapidly advancing digital technology is impacting our industry:
“It is the people who figure out how to work simply in the present, rather than the people who mastered the complexities of the past, who get to say what happens in the future.”
What are you doing to prepare your agency for this digital revolution?
The traditional method of networking with business cards is one of the most cost-effective means of marketing your agency but the online version provides greater opportunities for new business.
Online business cards allows an easier and more efficient way to share, receive, organize and even track your cards than their printed counterpart. Online business card services are now providing programs that mimics the action of handing out a paper business card as close as possible. All that is needed to share your card is an email address.
“No more stacks of cards on your desk. Paperless business cards are good for the environment, but they are also easier to carry, unlimited — you’ll never run out when you’re networking at an event or conference and you have a card ready for instant connections, for each context, every situation and any kind of person you meet in real life.”
A service that I recommend is MyNameIsE, essentially a mobile social network of business cards. E plays well with the services that contain all of your content such as your LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Skype or other social media accounts like Foursquare, SoundCloud or Flickr. It supports over 50 social media platforms.
With E you can store notes, tags, ratings and the geolocation of everybody you meet or send cards to. From your free account on their website you can view all of this information from your user interface. Here you can also create new cards, one for each occasion and manage them all from one location.
If your card recipient doesn’t have an E account you can send your card directly by email. Recipients receive a nice card with your logo, contact information and social networking profiles. They can store the card directly to the Outlook, Entourage accounts or on their smart phone through E’s vCard support.
You can use E’s new apps to share your card directly, peer-to-peer, from phone to phone. You can even share your card with multiple people at the same time if they have our app installed.
6 reasons why you should replace your paper cards:
Never run out of cards. Ever left your business cards at home or back at the hotel room? Started to hand out cards but didn’t have enough? Had to put a line through inaccurate information and handwrite in the new? Look through your pockets for a prospects card only to discover you lost it? Having an online card solves these problems.
Make notes and tags. Just like your printed business cards, you can add simple notes to the electronic version. You can also add tags to index a person and even rate them as a prospect.
Expand your social networks. You can easily add all of your primary social networks to your cards for card recipients to easily connect with you.
Remembering the place. The online version of your business card can tell you the location from where the card was received.
Easily save card information. Cards that are received can be saved immediately to your phone, computer or other device through the standard vCard (.vcf) format. No more having to type or scan in card info when you return from business trips.
Mobile Connection. You can use any smart phone and exchange cards with multiple people from phone to phone instantly. Phone apps make this service even easier to use.
Highlighting an article that helps you gain a better perspective to the changes and challenges impacting the advertising industry as well as your agency’s ability to attract future new business.
As author Clay Shirky has said, “It is the people who figure out how to work simply in the present, rather than the people who mastered the complexities of the past, who get to say what happens in the future.”
One of the richest and most important articles on advertising I’ve read this year was Fast Company’s,“The Future of Advertising.” I highly recommend it. I must have re-read it at least 5 times already and I glean something new from it each time.
Knowing the tendency of the majority of online readers to scan, I want to provide an incentive for you to read word-for-word, this excellent, but lengthy, 5,700+ word article. As I was trying to put together a “Readers Digest” version I was impressed by the insights just from the quotes within the article.
Here’s my list of the top 16 quotes from The Future of Advertising:
“Digital will fuck you up and the way your agencies are built to make money, staff things, price things. You guys have to change your DNA, and you’re going to have tough decisions.” Instructor form Hyper Island, a school based in Sweden that has gained recognition for producing some of the greatest digital talent in the ad industry
“Here we go again, first the news business, then the music business, then advertising. Is there any industry I get involved in that doesn’t get destroyed by digital technology?” Andy Nibley, former CEO of: ad agency Marsteller and the digital arms of both Reuters and Universal Music
“Creating more work for less money is the big paradox,” says Matt Howell, president of the Boston agency Modernista
“Our power has been matched and, in some categories, rivaled by user influence,” Nick Brien, CEO of Interpublic Group’s McCann
“The irony is that while there have never been more ways to reach consumers, it’s never been harder to connect with consumers,” explains Jakeman, now chief creative officer at Activision, the gaming company
“Marketing in the future is like sex. Only the losers will have to pay for it.” Jon Bond, cofounder of Kirshenbaum Bond Senecal + Partners
“With infinite ad inventory on the Internet, you just can’t have people do [media planning] anymore, it’s now being done by a piece of software.” Dan Salmon, an analyst at BMO Capital Markets
“Many agencies are hanging on to this idea that creativity is theirs to own and sell.” Harley CMO Mark-Hans Richer
“[Victors & Spoils] offered a great place to start versus sitting across from a creative who spent weeks crafting the perfect idea and gets upset if you want to change a word. I think the new model is scary because all of us in the ad industry want to feel, at least from a creative point of view, that we have something no one else has. So if you’re really good at it, you had to go to Creative Circus or Portfolio Center; you had to pay for it. Then you had to toil to get into a good shop. Then you had to get lucky to get on the good briefs. For someone to come out and say, ‘We think a lot of people can offer great ideas’ means, ‘What, I’m not special?’ “ Victors & Spoils chief creative officer Evan Fry
Referring to the possibilities of digital, “There’s never been a better time to be in advertising, and there’s never been a worse time.” Aaron Reitkopf, North American CEO of digital agency Profero
” There’s only one thing everyone agrees on, and that’s that there is too much excess: too many people, too many of the wrong kinds of people, too much bloat, too much inefficiency. And this in an industry that has laid off more than 160,000 people in the past two years. Ohhhh,the carnage is going to be awesome.” Aaron Reitkopf, North American CEO of digital agency Profero
“In our business, whenever there’s a disruption, our clients need guidance.” CEO Michael Roth, Interpublic Group
“In the early days, digital was always an afterthought, so we didn’t acknowledge the true cost. We sold wrong, we neglected to put digital-savvy people in our new business roles. Instead of building digital things that had utility, we approached it from a messaging mind-set and put messaging into the space. It took us a while to realize that project management in the digital space is completely different.”Edward Boches, Mullen’s chief innovative officer
“We still don’t know how to monetize what we do. We don’t monetize ourselves properly, so we don’t hit our margins.” Peter McGuinness, CEO of Gotham
“In a world where media spend is in inexorable decline, and where advertising per se is an endangered species, [agencies] don’t know where to turn,” he says. “The realization of the nightmare is under way. And that nightmare is the utter collapse of the business model.” Bob Garfield, advertising-industry pundit and author of The Chaos Scenario
“When media and communications planning have become more important than ever, why are our media agencies further (physically and philosophically) from the people who create advertising?” Brian Perkins, Vice President of Corporate Affairs of Johnson & Johnson
I would encourage you to take the time to read Danielle Sack’s article in its entirety, “The Future of Advertising,”to learn how Mullen, which laid off 100 workers during the recession has hired twice that number and landed such progressive brand accounts as Zappos and JetBlue.
Danielle invites you to Tweet your answer to the question, “What is the Future of Advertising?” by using the hashtag #adfuture.
Data mining is an increasingly important tool for ad agency new business transforming data into rich business intelligence, giving your agency an informational advantage.
“The real money in social media might not reside in the ads that sit on Web sites like Facebook and Twitter, but in the data produced by users’ frantic friending and sharing.
Internet users are now spending 22 percent of their time in social media, and Internet activity leaves behind a trail of data: what people like, what they share, and who is connected to whom with similar tastes.
There is a shift in focus from social network sites to the data they provide. Mining data from social media sites is not only great for your clients it provides excellent intelligence and important data for you to effectively reach out to your prospective clients.
With 400 million users spending a considerable portion of their online time on site, social networks would appear to be an agency new business director’s dream.
Our accounts on Facebook contain a wealth of data about us, whereas an online merchant’s account contains only a credit card number, address and buying history.
Social Media data that can be collected by any listening platform like a Radian6 or a Networked Insights. But in reality it’s what you do with that data that makes the big difference.
Amazon knew your preferences and that was a good thing because they made your shopping experience better. Netfix knew that one person’s recommendation was 67% likely to be a good recommendation for you, and that was a good thing.
I recently read a brilliant article by Tac Anderson, The Cloud Opened Up and Rained Marketing Data. Here’s s snip-it from Tac’s article, how our personal information and interactions fills data-centers:
“… those data centers process that information in real-time as you move through the Webbed World. It re-calculates your personal algorithm with every click and new event, with each bit of new information you shared on Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, your blog, your online and publicly available offline behavior.
There aren’t many other options really. Most people don’t think about it. They refuse to believe the degree of accuracy these machines have. You could do as some have done those who radically removed all convenience from their lives. You could be anti-social.
Even still most people don’t realize the level of slavery they are in. We know exactly what to offer you, when and at what price. We know how often to advertise to you, in what sequence and what frequency is most effective for preparing you to buy, vote or convert.” Tac Anderson, The Cloud Opened Up and Rained Marketing Data
The shift in focus development and growth of social network data opens up new possibilities for ad agency new business. The power to personalize your agency and it’s services is much greater.
When one has access to this rich, new set of data, the ability to target the individual needs of a particular visitor grows considerably.
When one has access to My data, My media, My connections, and My influence, one can truly create a “market of Me,” where the market is customized to my needs and enhanced by my actions.
Get ahead of the curve, learn the potential for data mining for agency new business, the companies and tools that will help you make strategic sense of the data.
“A recent test of 101 popular smartphone games and applications for iPhone and Android phones finds that more than half secretly sent user information to other companies”
Additional articles on the subject of advertising and data mining:
Your agency needs to be prepared for the magnitude of digital growth. Are you ready?
What will the future of advertising look like? The Last Advertising Agency on earth is a short film about what the future of advertising might look like if they don’t embrace the power of digital. Produced by Saatchi & Saatchi Canada, Tool, Pirate, Rooster and Lunch.
We are likely to see more change to our industry within the next 5 years than has been seen in the previous 50.
Additional ad agency/digital articles that may be of help:
Usability is a critical success factor for websites. If yours isn’t easy to use it is a very poor reflection of your agency and prospects will simply leave it.
I’ve written this often, a good creative rational for your agency’s website is that it should become your agency’s online brochure. It is he place where your work resides along with your agency’s capabilities and credentials. It must be user-friendly.
Web design expert, Jakob Nielsen states that, ”Web design is not a matter of taste or aesthetics — it’s a matter of science … what we actually know from our studies is that the average user experience on the Web is that of failure.”
Nielsen practices what he preaches. His own Website registered some 5 million hits last year, and he estimates that some 200,000 visitors read his bi-monthly column on how to make Web sites more “usable” — that is, easy to navigate and clearly organized so that visitors can find the information they’re looking for.
Here are his top 10 mistakes in Web design:
Bad Search. Search is the user’s lifeline when navigation fails. Overly literal search engines reduce usability in that they’re unable to handle typos, plurals, hyphens, and other variants of the query terms.
PDF Files for Online Reading. Users hate coming across a PDF file while browsing. PDF is an undifferentiated blob of content that’s hard to navigate. Reserve it for printing, distributing big documents.
Not Changing the Color of Visited Links. Knowing which pages they’ve already visited frees users from unintentionally revisiting the same pages over and over again.
Non-Scannable Text. A wall of text is deadly for an interactive experience. Intimidating. Boring. Painful to read. Write for online, not print.
Fixed Font Size. Respect the user’s preferences and let them resize text as needed. Read more about letting users control font size.
Page Titles With Low Search Engine Visibility. Search is the most important way users discover websites. The humble page title is your main tool to attract new visitors from search listings and to help your existing users to locate the specific pages that they need.
Anything That Looks Like an Advertisement. It is best to avoid any designs that look like advertisements. Selective attention is very powerful, and Web users have learned to stop paying attention to any ads that get in the way of their goal-driven navigation.
Violating Design Conventions. If you deviate on your site what is commonly done on other sites, your site will be harder to use and users will leave. Jakob’s Law of the Web User Experience states that “users spend most of their time on other websites.” Consistency is one of the most powerful usability principles: when things always behave the same, users don’t have to worry about what will happen.
Opening New Browser Windows. Designers open new browser windows on the theory that it keeps users on their site. But even disregarding the user-hostile message implied in taking over the user’s machine, the strategy is self-defeating since it disables the Back button which is the normal way users return to previous sites.
Not Answering Users’ Questions. Users are highly goal-driven on the Web. The ultimate failure of a website is to fail to provide the information users are looking for.
Why do Web site designers neglect to ensure usability? 2 Primary reasons:
“First is that they just neglect the entire issue because they think their own Web site is easy to use because they designed it so they don’t understand the need for usability testing,” says Nielsen.
“The second reason is that even if they recognize the need for usability, they think ‘we’ve got to bring in a team of five Ph. Ds, build a special laboratory with one way mirrors and test fifty users’ — no you don’t.”
Nielsen also points out that there are 2 things that a site can do to improve usability:
“You can run a very simple user test in three days… just get some real users in.”
The second method is professional analysis, which requires an expert with many years of experience to assess a Web site’s design and structure.
A conference for ad ad agency principals and partners plus media, account, creative and business development leaders that helps them get their digital house in order.
Bret Giles, president of agencysidewhich offers high-quality, current training, coaching, staffing and consulting exclusively to advertising agencies. An advertising veteran of 22 years, Bret started his career at Ketchum Advertising in San Francisco.
Bret has asked me to speak at his annual conference for advertising agencies and I asked him to share directly with you more about it.
I ran across a great quote from Dan Wieden of Wieden + Kennedy not too long ago. He said “The hardest part of this business is to realize that what you knew yesterday and all the things that gave you a sense of empowerment and prestige and security and safety is perhaps not relevant this morning…perhaps somebody else sees something you missed because you keep thinking you knew it all.”
Like it or not, marketing is in a sea change. What held value to your clients at the beginning of the year might not by the end. Media is increasingly fragmenting. Agencies are increasingly consolidating. Technology is increasingly converging. And that leaves principals in an interesting predicament, one which I feel we have never previously faced.
How do we, as agencies, remain relevant in the communications channel?
At agencyside, we started a conference called BOLO – that’s “Be On The Lookout” – an agency-exclusive, 2-day event in October focused on issues facing agencies today. It’s forward-looking, focused on arming agencies with information to thrive, not survive. With a heavy focus on digital marketing, attendees learn from four keynote addresses, dozens of breakout sessions, Q+A “salons” and interactive sessions with other attendees.
We’ll feature the creative director on the Old Spice campaign at Wieden + Kennedy, the social media professional who effectively rebranded Mardi Gras and authors of books ranging from Content Strategy for the Web to Escape from Cubicle Nation, Whale Hunting: How to Land Big Sales and Transform Your Company to PR in a Jar.
You can find more information about the event and other speakers at www.bolo2010.com. As a reader of Michael’s, you can use the promo code “MGass” for $100 off your registration.
In short, status quo is boring anyway, let’s shake up the future together. I look forward to meeting you in person come October!
Direct from New Orleans, some fresh ideas and insights for small-to midsize advertising agencies that are worthy of your review.
Ad Age recently conducted its first-ever Small Agency Conference in New Orleans. They brought together a great group of group of speakers that shared their expertise delivering rich nuggets of information from the importance of having a unique agency culture; how to attract the best talent in the marketplace; using creativity to boost the bottom line; to the nuts and bolts of new business and getting the win.
Attendees have been Twittering from the conference using the Twitter hashtag #smallagency, sharing some of the best-of-the best information. Wish you could have been there? I thought the next best thing for those who missed it would be sharing some of those Tweets for you. Some excellent insights.
Enjoy these top 50 nuggets from the conference attendees:
@sharondnapier The Brownstein Group has “Family” dinners with their key clients.awesome!
@tjeffrey: What do clients want to be educated about most ? 1 – social media. 2 – analytics/measurement
@adage: Everyone at @methodtweet takes turns answering phones, working front desk. “Keeps ego out of the org.” – Eric Ryan.
@jeremyporter: Find a way to get people to audition for your job. Hire off of homework not the interview.
bwaggoner: #smallagency It’s not about an agency and a client. It’s about a bunch of smart people in a room with good ideas. – Eric Ryan of Method
@rupalparekh Brand Jockey? Sure. If you work at Method (@methodtweet) you get to choose your own title
@AdLawGuy: Rocketfish owns a coffee company – who knew?
@jeremyporter: Very impressed by Rockfish. Lots of cool projects. They even make their own coffee to know what it’s like to be a CPG company
tjeffrey: Eric Ryan – “Without a social strategy, you can’t succeed with social media.”
AdLawGuy: Eric Ryan of Method: every brand in social media should have a social message
A great resource for small-to midsize ad agencies is Ad Age’s SMALL AGENCY DIARY.
This is a side note, a way to participate in conferences when you aren’t present by using Twitter:
I wasn’t able to attend the Small Agency Conference but I was able to share in it through live Twitter streams from the attendees. You could easily get a gist of some of the best-of-the-best parts of the conference speakers by what the Twittering attendees felt were important. There would be lots of the same quotes and points repeated.
I was able to glean from the Tweets some of the best insights from the attendees themselves. It felt as though I was there in a sense. I knew that the conference room went from being extremely cold to hot and very uncomfortable. Participants loved the New Orleans style cuisine and were absolutely blown away by the deserts.
The camera guy offered advice, through Twitter, to the speakers. Speakers shared their impressions. Lots of behind-the-scenes info that you wouldn’t have gotten just through a live video stream.
I was even able to follow along during the Awards Banquet that evening and have heard from friends who attended the conference on their travel home.
How to enhance Twitter by Blogging:
I was able to post the 50 Best Insights out to my 40,000 + followers on Twitter before the conference was even over through a blog post on my Fuel Lines site. That allows the content provided through the Twitter hash tags to have a much longer shelf life. This info will continually be shared well beyond the conference. This is a reason to use a blog as your central social media platform to complement tools such as Twitter. I will continue to gain SEO, content for my eNewsletter, repurposed Tweets that will be re-published through my Twitter accounts periodically
I also help spread the word of the conference, create buzz and help generate traffic for the conference sponsors: AdAge and AOL Advertising.
Social media recognizance could provide a significant advantage to your agency’s new business initiatives. Twitter, along with blogs, blog comments, and other social networks, is abundant with conversations that can give your agency a boost over your competition.
JetBlue Airways tested the social media credibility of ad agencies vying for the airline’s marketing account by tweeting. Ad Age’s Kunur Patel recently reported, in his article JetBlue Marketer to Agencies: Find Me on Twitter, wrote,
“One basic way agencies can demonstrate digital chops to a potential client? Find him or her on Twitter.
That’s the lesson to be learned from JetBlue’s senior VP-marketing and commercial, Marty St. George, who earlier today decided to test agencies currently vying for the airline’s marketing account with this tweet: “We’re pitching our advertising AOR. Curious on digital savvy … first test is how many of the agencies will find me on Twitter.”
As of the timing of Patel’s article only two agencies, Mullen and New York-based Ludvik & Partners, were following Marty St. George (@martysg). Boston based Mullen was named as JetBlue’s new agency following a five-month review process.
I’m sure Mullen did its homework and was gathering as much intel as possible. Knowing that JetBlue’s marketing strategy leans heavily on digital channels and social media the past few years. That the company has 1.6 million followers on Twitter and that Mr. St. George also had his own Twitter account and was posting about the agency review process.
Mullen has been “walking the walk” creating a strong track record within the digital space and the social media arena, that has been producing new business results such as their recent win of the Zappos account.
Unsurprisingly, the Ad Age article raised quite a few comments. Many comments from those within the ad industry were negative toward Marty St. George’s tactics:
If you ask me, JetBlue isn’t setting the bar very high with this little exercise. There are much better way to find a digital savvy agency.
I’m not sure if this is absurd, egotistical, misguided or all of the above.
Unfortunately this is an example of how not to start an agency review.
By analogy, I wouldn’t find my future wife by asking her to find me on twitter.
Hey, St. George, get over yourself. do you want top talent or not? stop with the rank “talent search” moves.
Face it: its a hack move pure and simple (with the emphasis on SIMPLE).
My opinion, from a new business perspective, while many agencies whine about these type of tactics the smart agencies will seize the opportunities. What’s your opinion?
The world of advertising isn’t changing, it’s changed. Marketers have pushed for the change and assessing whether their current agencies are ready to help them into the future.
New data suggest that marketers know social is the way forward. Social media is breaking down the walls between between “all types” of agencies, each trying to own it for their clients.
Eric Kintz, a Hewlett-Packard marketing exec and blogger said: “I think they [agencies] are somewhat helping. But they need to show how social media has helped them further their own agenda. So if an ad agency comes to me, I’d ask if they have their own page on a social network site? Are they posting videos on YouTube? Do they have their own blog? And how has it helped them in their own business?”
“My personal experience is that most agencies are social media posers. They do not embrace social media for their own agencies yet recommend it for clients.” agency search consultant, Hank Blank, Blank and Associates
Marketers are still finding it difficult to locate the ad agencies that are credible and capable within the social media arena. According to Forrester’s research, marketers don’t trust traditional agencies to run their social media campaigns, but neither do they trust interactive agencies their entire marketing program to smaller interactive agencies.
“All of this creates somewhat of an agency purgatory – where different agencies try and take on each others’ roles but no one type of agency is ready to take over,” writes Forrester Analyst, Sean Corcoran.
Agencies need to first get their own house in order when it comes to social media. Prospective clients will be looking for agencies with verifiable social media experience that practice what they preach.
Note to Ad Agencies: Staying atop the rapidly changing media environment within the advertising industry is critical for agency new business. I received the following report the day it was released, did you? If you don’t have a method of receiving timely information as you’ll find below, it can have a negative impact upon your agency’s new business program.
The secret is having this kind of information automatically received rather than having to search for it.
Outsell, which provides research and advisory services to the publishing and information industries, surveyed more than 1,000 US advertisers in December 2009 for its annual “Marketing and Advertising Study 2010.”
This marketing and ad spending study forecasts spending, share, and growth for five media types—online, events, print, TV/radio, and PR/other—and methods used within each, from social networking to mobile/wireless marketing.
In what it calls “an industry milestone crossover event,” US companies will spend more this year on digital and online advertising and marketing than on print for the first time ever.
“Advertisers are directing dollars toward the channels which generate the most qualified leads and most effective branding. As they emerge from the recession, they need more accountability, and they’re spreading their spending over a widening set of options,” said Chuck Richard, Vice President and Lead Analyst, Outsell.
Some nuggets from this report:
Companies will spend 119.6 billion dollars on online and digital strategies and 111.5 billion dollars on newspaper and magazine advertisements and other print campaigns
US spending on advertising and marketing projected to increase by 1.2 percent in 2010 to 368 billion dollars
Spending on newspaper advertising expected to drop 8.2 percent to 27 billion dollars
Spending on direct mail marketing campaigns could rise 2.7 percent to 24.4 billion dollars and spending on custom print publications would be 3.0 percent higher at 19.3 billion dollars
Spending on print directories would fall 8.3 percent to 11.6 billion dollars
Spending on print newsletters would be flat at 11.4 billion dollars
Spending on television advertising was forecast to drop 6.5 percent to 59.6 billion dollars
Print magazine advertising could be up 1.9 percent to $9.4 billion
Methods generating the highest B2B ROI are topped by advertisers’ own websites, followed by conferences, exhibitions and trade shows; direct mail; search engine keywords; and e-marketing/e-newsletters.
B2B advertisers see cross-media marketing as most effective; 78% combine three or more major marketing methods.
51 percent of B2B marketers rate Facebook as extremely or somewhat effective, followed by LinkedIn (45 percent), Twitter (35 percent) and MySpace (25 percent).
“2010 will not suddenly erase the painful memory of crumbling ad spending in 2009, but it will provide much closer to a flat year for several of the traditional media types,” Outsell said.
The entire 33 page report is available for download for a fee by clicking here
Additional “digital” related articles that may be of interest:
It’s important for agencies and PR firms to stay on top of the changing communications technologies and tools that impact our industry. One PR consultant’s experiment has forced him to discover “news tools” available beyond the printed newspaper.
I came across Adam Vincenzini, a PR consultant’s new years resolution for 2010 and thought it would be of interest. Adam had averaged over 60 minutes per day consuming a variety of newspapers.
To explore the online resources available, he made a New Years resolution that he would not to buy or read a printed newspaper for an entire year. Within the first two months of his experiment he has already compiled this list of 50 ways he can receive the news without reading it in print.
I found Adam’s 10 Mobile-Based ways to get your news very helpful:
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MICHAEL GASS
Welcome to my blog, FUEL LINES: The best business development tips, tactics, practices and trends to help ad agencies, PR firms and digital shops create a more clearly defined focus and differentiating business strategy.
Click here to listen to my experience using social media from an ad agency new business perspective, BlogTalkRadio interview conducted by Trey Pennington
Posted by Michael Gass 
