Archive for the 'Agencies' Category

I feel guilty about not blogging for a few weeks - Richard has his mind on other things (his new book, 2011, is on the shelves of bookstores everywhere) and I’ve just been, well, busy, and a little lazy, but mostly busy. I gave a keynote speech at the Retail Advertising & Marketing Association’s annual conference in Sonoma a couple of weeks ago. I was hot! No, really, I was very hot. It was because of the freakishly warm weather with temperatures creeping above 100 degrees. It was a great session though. Lots of very thoughtful and switched-on senior marketers from the retailing industry, struggling from the demands of their jobs in a tough economic environment. We talked through the Punk Marketing Manifesto and everyone there seemed to get it and buy into it. But, what really got them excited were some simple tips I’d put together on the things they could do the very next day that they got back into their offices to raise the bar of their marketing. They’re just simple ideas really, that are the first baby steps on the way to big change. Things they could do under the radar without having to change the whole of their marketing…just yet.
Here they are:

1. DON’T OUTSOURCE ALL OF THE CREATIVITY TO YOUR AGENCIES. IT NEEDS TO BE PART OF EVERY DECISION WE MAKE ON A DAILY BASIS. IT’S NOT TRUE YOU ARE EITHER BORN CREATIVE OR NOT. IT’S LIKE A MUSCLE – THE MORE YOU USE IT, THE STRONGER IT’LL GET, AND BOY IT’LL FEEL GOOD!

2. SIT DOWN WITH A SOME OF YOUR TEAM AND LIST OUT THE CONVENTIONS OF YOUR SECTOR, THEN THINK OF WAYS TO TURN THEM ON THEIR HEADS (NOT YOUR TEAM, THE CONVENTIONS)!

3. GET TOGETHER A SMALL GROUP OF YOUR SMARTEST PEOPLE FROM INSIDE AND OUTSIDE THE ORGANIZATION. GO SOMEWHERE FUN, LIKE A BEACH CLUB. ASK THEM TO HELP YOU THINK THROUGH ONE THING YOUR STORES CAN BE THE BEST IN THE CATEGORY AT – MAKE IT VERY SPECIFIC AND ACTIONABLE (NOT BEST AT CUSTOMER SERVICE – IT’S TOO VAGUE!). THE NEXT DAY START PUTTING THAT INTO PLACE. MAYBE IT’S THE BEST WAY OF SAYING GOODBYE TO YOUR GUESTS – A NICE PIECE OF CANDY ETC.

4. PICK ONE STORE AND SET UP A CONTEST THERE FOR 10 OF YOUR STAFF AND OUTSIDE PARTNERS (INCLUDE PEOPLE FROM THAT STORE). MAKE IT LIKE “THE APPRENTICE” – SPLIT THE GROUP INTO TWO TEAMS AND SET THEM A SALES TARGET FOR THE DAY, THE WINNERS TO GET A GREAT DINNER SOMEWHERE. THE NEXT MONTH DO IT IN ANOTHER STORE.

5. PICK ANOTHER STORE AND GET THE STAFF TO DO SOMETHING AMAZING AND WONDERFUL IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD. WHEN IT’S DONE REWARD THE STAFF THEN ASK OTHER STORES TO DO THEIR OWN INDIVIDUAL COMMUNITY PROGRAM. DON’T DO ANY PR UNTIL YOU’VE DONE 10 OF THEM.

6. DEFINE YOUR ENEMY – NOT THE OBVIOUS SUCH AS YOUR IMMEDIATE COMPETITOR, BUT AN ATTITUDE. HINT: APPLE’S ENEMY ISN’T REALLY THE PC, IT’S “SAMENESS” OR “DULLNESS.” NOW DRAW UP A BATTLE PLAN TO COMBAT IT.

7. ASK YOURSELF: “AM I A GOOD CLIENT TO MY AGENCY? DO I SET THEM CLEAR GOALS AND GIVE THEM THE FREEDOM TO COME BACK WITH INTERESTING SOLUTIONS?” IF NOT, TALK TO ME ABOUT WAYS TO IMPROVE. IF SO, AND THE WORK YOU’RE SEEING STILL ISN’T GREAT, THEN TALK TO ME ABOUT FINDING A NEW AGENCY.

8. INVEST THEM IN THE BUSINESS. FIRST ASK THE AGENCY TEAM TO EACH WORK IN YOUR STORES FOR ONE WEEK AND COME BACK WITH SUGGESTIONS ON HOW TO IMPROVE THE BUSINESS AND SOME CONSUMER INSIGHTS GOT FIRST HAND.

9. GIVE THE AGENCY A SMALL EXPERIMENTAL BUDGET (SAY $50K) TO USE TO COME UP WITH INNOVATIVE MARKETING IDEAS THAT YOU PROMISE NOT TO INTERFERE MUCH WITH. IT’LL MAKE THEM FEEL EXCITED AND MOTIVATED.

10. MAKE YOUR AGENCY PART OF THE WHOLE PROCESS. SET THEM BIGGER PROBLEMS AND THEY’LL COME BACK WITH BIGGER SOLUTIONS.

It was announced today that Crispin Porter + Bogusky won the advertising account for Microsoft’s consumer products, a piece of business with billings in excess of $300million. That is some feat and I want to be the first (alright, the 589th) to congratluate my old colleagues at the agency. They’ve come a long way since I first met them in 1997 when they were less then 100 people occupying two floors in an office tower in Coconut Grove, Florida. Not many people, even in the insular ad industry, knew of them depite the fact they’d been doing great work for a few years and even when they launched the brand Truth - still one of the best campaigns for anything anywhere - the next year they were regarded by most as a bunch of oddballs who had no place working on big mainstream brands.

Well today oddball came of age. You don’t get much more mainstream than good old Microsoft, the company that people love to hate for its size, dull-looking products and geeky persona. The big MS must have realized that to transform its image, its only hope was to completely rethink its brand and, seeing what CP+B did for companies like Burger King, they became pretty much the only choice. The runner-up for the account was Fallon, a great agency, but one that has hardly done much to add that priceless ‘cool factor’ to its clients’ brands in the last few years. What they did for BMW by creating Hollywood-quality films for the web was amazing for its bravery but, hey, that was 8 years ago now.

There are few agencies that compete with CP+B. It has almost single-handedly transformed the way advertising is defined, from a format driven discipline to something much broader and organic. The way Alex Bogusky and his creative lieutenants think about markting problems is just so markedly different from the way it works in other agencies, it just doesn’t bear comparison. Smaller agencies run by big thinking renegades have a chance to learn from CP+B and create truly media neutral, holistic campaigns, but I just don’t know how the big agencies, so used to working in the old way where media determines creative (and TV is always king), have a chance. Luckily for them there are still clients who put a premium on service above creative, and global network above big thinking, but with accounts like Microsoft handing the keys over to agencies like CP+B, I wonder for how long.

Okay Punk Marketing Legion, since my last post was so looooooong, I’m going to keep this one short. I wanted to share something I came across while trolling the InterWhatever. Cooked up by German agency Jung von Matt/next, it’s somewhere between a bill board, a graffiti mural, and a really GINORMOUS video game:

Hamburg-based funny-named agency Jung von Matt/next unveiled a graffiti wall with embedded interactive qualities. (So much better than those silly walls that shout out to you in the U.S.)

Billed Nextwall, the 30m-long unit features embedded Semacodes. Snapping a pic of a Semacode with a cameraphone unlocks hidden videos, mobile wallpaper and social features, like the ability to write to friends on the wall’s “digital pinboard.”

Passersby can also download an info guide on the wall via Bluetooth. Anyone that snaps a photo of one of the wall’s characters can use it as a coupon in nearby shops.

After reading this, I got so excited (ooh!) about multitudinous possibilities for mobile marketing.

Can you imagine a scavenger hunt-type game played across a whole city (or a country) with these things?!

Graffiti laden or not, the newest interactive billboards offer wild ideas that will keep intrepid Punk marketers awake at nights. Go get ‘em.

A piece in yesterday’s New York Times discussed how magazine publishers, such as Conde Nast, have been creating their own in-house ad agencies and how this is a threat to traditional ad agencies. Instead of an advertiser paying a trad agency to create work that runs in the magazines, the in-house agency will do it for them, so missing out the middle men in their trendy glasses.

Publications creating ads for advertisers is hardly new, of course. In the early days of advertising this was how all ads were done. A publication would sell space, one of its copywriters would write a snappy slogan and the art department would lay it out all fancy, all included in the price. Then agencies sprang up to sell the space for the publications and throw in their creative services “for free,” paid for by the 15% discount they would get from the pubs.

But it is different now. Conde Nast’s in-house agency, the Conde Nast Media Group, for instance, generates about $200million in revenue from programs for advertisers: programs that include TV specials, radio spots and in-strore promotions in addition to magazine ads. And Conde Nast can pull in some major celebs for its ad campaigns, so giving the advertisers another reason to use the in-house agency.

Should traditional agencies be worried? Of course they should! They will need to work harder to justify their role in the mix, as advertisers find they can easily bypass them. They will have to prove that they have a better understanding of the consumer, that they have better ideas and that they can do better campaigns by not being tied to any one media vehicle (after all, unlike the in-house agencies, traditional ad agencies are impartial advisors to advertisers).

How many marketers put a short film on YouTube every day in the hope that it’ll become the next viral phenomenon only to see it fall flat on its face? OK, so we don’t know the answer, but we bet it’s A LOT. We love that marketers are willing to take risks and try new platforms, but the fact that so few of them succeed means that most of them still don’t get it. The media is NOT the message. Just because YouTube is hot does it mean people care about a marketing message that is stuffed on it. The content has to be great and relevant to the adolscent boys who are watching.

A recent campaign for Diesel underwear got oodles of attention by creating a big audacious idea and seeing where it went. It seemed to have worked, with millions visiting the Diesel website, a lot of PR buzz and likely accolades at the Cannes ad festival.