Advertising Agency Insights

There are too many bad “marketing agencies” out there.

So, what are the signs to look out for?

These should be pretty obvious to most people…in case you don’t know, here they are.

1) Off the shelf “do it yourself” website.

Not only is the site just awful, they selected the worst colors imaginable. To top it off, they list website strategy and development as one of their services. Then, in the “About Us” section they reference them-self in the third person and talk about all the dynamic and strategic things they’ve done over the years, and why they are the perfect fit for just about anything. Then to top it all off, they try to create the illusion that their a well established organization that’s not working out of their home with the gratuitous stock image of the high-rise office building.

2) Check their references.

Their references will be happy to tell you how great the agency is and that they do terrific work. Do yourself a favor and ask the references about their professional history? More often than not, they’ve worked together at the same company in the past and are old buddies.

3) Their email address ends in yahoo.com, gmail.com or aol.com and/or their website isn’t a .com

This kind of goes with number one, but if they aren’t smart enough to have an email extension that matches their .net or .biz URL, then they aren’t detail oriented enough for this business.

4) No one ever answers the phone.

If the company won’t at least hire an answering service then you can plan on getting poor response.

5) They appear one dimensional.

A one trick pony can be great if they are experienced in your industry and have valuable insight. However, in most cases, if they feature one aspect of marketing and have only worked in one or two verticals, you probably won’t benefit from innovative ideas borrowed from other industries.

Don’t get me wrong, everyone has to start somewhere. If you look hard enough, you might even find an innovative mind who can bring great value to your company. They key is transparency. Find a shop that doesn’t put on a show and who will sit down and talk to you about your business. Ensure them that you’re not fishing for information, but looking for someone who understands the dynamics of your industry and business.

Good luck.

So, you think the spots stink but you’ve been running around all day with that stupid song stuck in your head. You have to admit that its a catchy tune, the concept is clever, its shot well and the creative direction is great, but you still hate it? Ok, creative is subjective.

Usually, the first logical question to determine whether or not the spots are effective is if did they shot the restaurant spot and the car spot together, or separate? Many times ad campaigns will just run their course. I.e. We shot the spots, bought the media, so we might as well run it. We’re getting ok results so don’t pull the ads. However, the run frequency on this campaign makes that question irrelevant. Why? Because they have been running the spots like crazy, which would tell any first year ad peep that the campaign is a huge success.

So, why is it that every time I mention those ads to someone, they say they hate them, and that its bad advertising? They spots are obviously pulling, so aren’t they a success? Ohhhh, the old subjective ringer…they’re campy-ness is going to ruin the BRAND. Hmmm? Ruin the freecreditreport.com brand. Ok.

The case for the smarter, efficient and savvier small ad agency.

Back in my client-side days as the G.M. of Advertising for DISH Network, I was tasked with hiring an agency of record. A previous effort was made by a Sr. V.P. of Marketing the year before which turned into a creative shoot out, one where no agency was selected. Goodby and Campbell Mithun were among the group of competitors, all of which were furious that they spent a ton a money pitching a company that had no idea what it wanted. I remember the lower level Marketing staff looking at the presentations afterwards and making comments on how “unoriginal the creative was,” “that it wasn’t on message” and “these guys obviously don’t get us.” The bottom line was that the internal creative team didn’t want a big outside agency coming in and taking over, and the leadership didn’t want to pay their bill.

However, we still needed exciting new creative ideas and our internal team wasn’t delivering the concepts we needed. Like the “WOW” campaign from the mid-sized L.A. creative shop David & Goliath, which resulted in a terrific TV campaign that made our phones ring like crazy. Or, like the infamous “Cable Pig” campaign which we co-developed with a very small New York ad agency. That campaign ignited our base, infuriated cable and catapulted DISH past Time Warner into third place in our category.

I made the same mistake that many people do when it was my turn to hire an agency, I thought bigger would be better. Don’t get me wrong, Publicis West out of Seattle did a terrific job managing the work flow and developing the creative, but the cost was so high that the expense vs. perceived value was too low and ultimately resulted in their dismissal. I got the turn-key solution I was looking for but what I really needed was a creative shop that could think strategically and reverse engineer great creative that would bring our message to life.

It was a mistake to look past the smaller agencies that competed for our business at DISH, and recognizing that error in judgment resulted in my future choices of employment…small ad agencies. My first stop was a creative agency in Pasadena that was so creative it was scary. Their core business is video game developers, an industry that markets to the toughest demo on the planet, tweens and teens. The imagery was visually mind blowing and they know how to market to their demo so well that they should be eligible for a patent on the process. Where things got sticky is when they tried to break out of their chosen vertical and the prospective company didn’t fit their system. Most of those pitches were a major stretch with them trying to draw obscure parallels like “why first person shooter games are similar to online retail initiatives?” Key takeaways from that experience? Work for an agency that has a diverse client base, one that has a handful of large clients and staff that truly enjoy being problem solvers as much as being artists.

The bottom line is that you have to look hard to find an ad agency thats a true value. Here are the top things to look for:

• A shop that’s strategic and creative. They need to be able to break down competitive sets and properly position a brand and the products or services the brand offers. They should know when to shift from awareness to acquisition and vise versa. Not be afraid of a strong call to action and know how to protect the brand image, all at the same time. If the shop is all strategy then they’re really a marketing firm and you can expect to pay through the nose for a ton of extra quantitative and qualitative research. If the shop is all creative then be prepared to fight over content when they keep putting your offer in mouse type in the lower right hand corner of the ad. A good agency will have a deep pool of creative and strategic talent at their fingertips should a project require a higher level execution.
• Find a shop that’s the right size. Small enough so that there’s no “B” and “C” teams packed full of Joey’s and Suzie’s, first year ad pups who can’t find your ad with two hands. You only want to work with “A” grade talent at an agency thats just big enough to turn out the work.
• Make them an extension of you. If you’re a bigger company, give the shop a chance to build a team around you and commit to developing a long term relationship. Familiarity creates efficiency and you’ll be sharing the same brain before you know it. Our clients frequently make the comment that we know their business better than they do. While their distracted by corporate issues, we’re thinking about their brand and how to keep moving the needle on sales.
• Don’t treat your agency like a commodity that is easily replaced. Lack of loyalty will get you an agency that treats every job like it could be their last, resulting in you getting only a fraction of their true effort and they’ll charge you more for the work they do.
• Don’t place so much weight on experience in your vertical that you overlook what experience in a different industry can do for you. I hired Publicis because they’re the AOR for T-Mobile. The cellular industry and satellite were extremely similar. Acquisition based with hardware and tiered product plans where retention is key, because subscriber acquisition cost means that you’re not making money on a new subscriber for years. There was a small learning curve for Publicis but the relationship resulted in no out of the box ideas or modalities like the fresh perspectives that we got from the smaller agencies before them.

Brandon Tague

Director of Strategic Planning / Bigfish Creative Group

Scottsdale and Greater Phoenix, Arizona

I remember way back when the internet started and it totally didn’t make sense. World Wide Web? Ok. And I do what with that? Register my domain name and then chose a web browser. Got it. Ok, not really. I was like millions of other working professionals and business owners who had no idea what the internet was all about and made the decision to sit on the side line until it worked itself out. The downside was that I had no clue what anyone was talking about for a long time and as a result I missed the .com boom. The upside was that I didn’t know what anyone was talking about and mised the .com bust.

Now we have Web 2.0 and we’re in the same situation. We have millions of businesses milling around social networking sites with no clue on how they can convert this massive potential for consumer exposure into traffic to their website. Everywhere you look there’s some marketing guru with the “how to make social networking work” seminar or newsletter that doesn’t tell you a damn thing. So, here is what you need to know:

1) If your target audience isn’t web savvy and isn’t using social media sites to gather information, you’re going to have a tough time getting traction. Social networking is only as useful as the communities that drive the traffic. For example, an IT support, hardware or software company is going to have a much easier time using social networking as a marketing tool because the corporate IT tech personnel that’s buying their goods and services is very likely to be using the internet as their primary source of information. On the contrary, a steel pipe manufacture who’s industry has a limited amount of competition and has changed very little over the years will have far less of a reason to be online.

2) You can’t be a chicken and must be willing to put yourself out there. They way social networks drive traffic to your business is by providing compelling information that people will be interested in reading, and then, be more interested in finding out about the author. The first thing you do when you join a social network you will set up a profile. There will be information about you, your company and most importantly a link to your website. So, once you join a group you must participate in discussions. This is the way you put yourself out there just like you would if you went to a networking group. Whether you say something interesting or not, people will frequently click on your profile and get exposed to your brand.

3) You have to do your part to help networks grow. Most social sites will have an “invite” feature that allows you to invite friends and industry contacts to the forum. The bigger the forum is the more great content and discussions will be added. When people visit a network they want to know that there is going to be interesting and helpful information there. New information is what keeps them coming back.

4) Experiment and stand out. You have to try different things to get the hang of it. Create interesting personal pages on the network so that you stand out from everyone else. People do business with people who look like they “get it.”

5) Don’t freak out but EVERYTHING you write will be there forever. You may not be able to see it, but its out there. So, don’t write anything stupid.

6) You don’t have to be a great writer, just a good thinker. Try not to have misspeleld words and write in a cohesive manner, but don’t worry too much about it. You don’t want to look like an total idiot but please keep in mind that people in the social networking scene know that folks pop in and out, chatting when they get a chance and don’t have time to agonize over every word.

7) Once you’ve got the hang of it, hire a pro to take you to the next level. Get a strong working knowledge of SM and then you’ll know what to look for in an agency. Accept the fact that you have way to much going on to be a “master of all things” and look to a solid social networking agency to help you get effective exposure.