Jimmy Gilmore

03.1.10

Shattered. It’s time to re-imagine.

I don’t know a single person in my profession of advertising, or in an ancillary field, who isn’t working much harder for the same or less money then they were a few years ago. Most industries have been hit real hard. But marketing and advertising professionals got it right in the teeth.

Marketing departments are now expected to function with far fewer people and also handle a proliferating assortment of media types. Plus they need to be expert on Web strategy, analytics, ROI reporting, project management, get social media and Web 2.0 figured out and keep multiple vendors on task and on budget with less then half the work force they would have had five years ago. And did I mention the dwindling budgets?

Those dwindling budgets are being passed on to the agencies where staffs have been decimated and pressure to preform and workloads have risen. A friend reported an 80% cut where he was working.

Agency vendors and media companies are now in dire straights. Many have even folded.

There are now thousands of talented people on the street. Many of the people I know who’ve lost their jobs were among the best. Unfortunately their salaries lined up perfectly with what the bean counters needed reduce the hemorrhaging. I’ve been caught in that situation before and am so thankful it’s not me this time.

Many of the people left manning the marketing departments and agencies are working at unsustainable rates. Yeah, I know it’s cool for creative types to sleep under their desks when they’re juniors. I did it too but a whole industry can’t continue working at a short-term pace forever.

It doesn’t look like lost workers are going to be replaced anytime soon either. Economists expect slow job growth over the next decade, it may even take 10 years to reach near full employment again. And fears of a double-dip recession are keeping staffs ultra-lean.

So is everyone just supposed to suck it up for the next decade? Many managers are choosing that strategy. And it may seem like the safest.

But I suspect it’s not in the long run. If the value was truly there in our current mix of services and the industry has not changed for good, then the money would have come back as the stock market has recovered. But it hasn’t come back to the traditional marketing channels.

In fact, digital is seeing some growth and Web 2.0 and social are seeing significant growth. Remember when newspapers ran columns in the business sections making fun of the internet companies like Facebook who couldn’t turn a profit? Yeah, times really have changed.

Well, we’ve all gotten leaner and meaner. We’re working smarter.  We’re employing project management best practices and using software to optimize our work flow. Yet none of these are good enough to restore balance.

What’s really needed is a complete re-imaging of the industry. We need to break down the all the assumptions that we’ve had about how our business works.

That ad agencies shouldn’t take responsibility for digital strategy and analytics.

That marketing is different than customer service.

That digital agencies can’t do branding.

That PR shops should function in a vacuum.

That corporate communications are somehow different than marketing communications.

That marketing and sales teams can function separately.

That virtual agencies just can’t work on branding.

That branding happens at an agency or marketing department in the first place.

That crowd sourcing will only hurt our industry.

That advertising should always be created in integrated campaigns.

That push messaging can’t also be pull (anyone old enough to remember The Great International Paper Airplane Contest knows better).

That a digital agency shouldn’t produce a TV spot.

That a creative departments should exist.

That an ad agency shouldn’t be responsible for the messaging and building of a corporate website.

If any of the above seems risky or scary you’re right. But if you don’t take these points seriously, you may find yourself in a rather scary place before this economy has recovered.

Technorati Tags: Ad Agency, advertising, Business, marketing

02.18.10

Look Pa, the Internets all grown up. Or if you’re an traditional ad agency, you just might be f’d.

70% of your target audience uses the mobile web

%50 is on FB

%60 reads blogs

%50 watch online video regularly

30% is on Twitter

Only 12% watch American Idol

Ed. Note: This is not a far fetched

Are you really going to run another television campaign just like last years? Are you going to expect it to improve your client’s sales because the creative is fresh and a little less watered-down? And are you then going to rationalize it by throwing in a couple of after thought digital things like an iPhone app that somehow ties into your television spots?

If you are, you’re not alone. Is it possible you’re screwing yourself faster than you’re screwing your client? Well, good thing the client’s interactive shop can’t do branding. Oh wait, they’re starting to fight for that business now, aren’t they?

In a recent provocative post, Bud Cadell says many agencies and their models are broken for good. I certainly agree that some agencies may finally be ready for the waste bin of history but we must also recognize that agency Bill Bernbach thought was a dinosaur is still going and reaping in much, much larger billings than the agencies that are now professed to be the way of the future.

While these dino agencies may not be barometers of the future, they sure are a great example of what the clients are demanding. And as wants have changed over the years, so have the big, bloated account service driven shops. They adapted with TV and took baby steps with their clients to the internet. And now, many are in acquisition mode, acquiring the talent and bandwidth needed to service their large clients in the Web 2.0 world. Sure, they’re way behind now but they were also way behind Bernbach in the creative revolution.

Ten years ago, I was convinced the new breed of MBA advertising manager, and the rise of the CMO role on the client side, meant a more sophisticated client and less reliance on big agencies for heavy lifting. Silly me, I thought this would be a boon for smaller shops and boutique agencies. Instead the next decade was a feeding fest for holding companies – swallowing up the agencies they didn’t run out of business. And adverting managers and CMOs still relied heavily on agencies as their own jobs grew more complex with the rise of new media and more demands of productivity and ROI from within.

The next decade will probably be even more complicated than the last for marketers. And even more complicated for agencies as they struggle to provide value for their clients in a rapidly changing media landscape. There’s a good chance that I’ll be as wrong as I was 10 years ago but I think there is still a lot of “value” that good old ad agencies can provide their clients.

Clients in the future will need

Strategy: Clients struggle with this one internally, not because of a lack of brain power but because of a lack of objectivity and an abundance of politics.

Creativity and production: Sure they can crowd source ideas but agencies are good at sticking to a strategy, bringing talent together, managing creativity and producing something on time.

Development – Long the unwanted job of the interactive agency, traditional agencies that can integrate this effectively with a marketing communications plan will show value over siloed efforts.

Clients in the future won’t need but will still probably still buy

Account management: Clients these days are supposed to be managing the brand themselves but they love having someone to call for experienced advice. Agencies have been toying with eliminating this position or transitioning it to more of a project management job. But it still creates revenue. Account managers of the future will have to be great project managers, client managers and understand digital beyond “I’ll ask my interactive guy.” And great ones will also need some strategy chops.

Media planning and buying: This can easily be contracted to a specialist media agency but when you have your account management at the agency, there’s a good chance some shops will still continue to reap profits from media services.

What advertising clients don’t need and won’t buy

This is a trick heading. Advertisers will buy just about any business service from an agency that provides value. Agencies that are survivors, survive because they are good problem solvers for clients. The task of our business is to solve marketing problems and apply marketing solutions to business problems. Because client problems are constantly changing, marketers will need partners that can adapt and throw bandwidth at their current problem quickly. They don’t want to hire in-house for what may be perceived as a temporary problem – let the agency hire, adapt and fire staff – our business does that well.

What does this agency look like? It’s big but it runs on a lean mixture. It has strategists who are comfortable with the web and outdoor. Art directors who know what HTML5 is, copywriters who blog and can tweet about more than their breakfast, and developers who collaborate with the creatives. Producers who aren’t siloed between Web, broadcast and print. And account managers who can use tools like Bootcamp.

These agencies will create products that may be advertising, may be events or may even be more like online movements. They could be a dinosaur that has evolved into a lizard agency or they maybe been an interactive agency that picked up responsibility for the entire brand or a even great creative agency that merged with an interactive one. Whatever the case, there will be less room for traditional shops that don’t get digital or digital shops that don’t do branding but I don’t see the death of an entire industry.

Technorati Tags: advertising, interactive, social media, Web 2.0

02.16.10

Brands in social media don’t need to be too friendly. But they better damn sell me.

So much of what is discussed in social media revolves around engagement in terms of interacting with the brand as one would a friend. What we forget is there have been offline models for decades, and even centuries, of how business relationships should work – ironically they have nothing to do being a “friend.” Alan Wolk writes a nice series about not wanting to be a brand’s friend. It’s a great, thought provoking read.

The internet, and social media specifically, has caused many people to reevaluate not just how we interact with brands, but what that relationship should be. I think Wolk makes a great case that it doesn’t need to be a friendship. And in the real world, many of us don’t really like doing business with our “friends,” we’d rather just have a beer with them.

So let’s think about how we interact with brands in the real world.

For consumer goods it’s generally a retailer, customer care representative or a sales person.

For B2B interaction, it’s often a series of sales people before the purchase and, afterward, a service representatives.

None of these people are friends per se. But they can be friendly, and that’s a big difference.

On the flip side, what’s wrong with the models. From the service providers mindset, they can be expensive, and with the economy way down there’s certainly room for improvement on anything cost related. Obviously this is why marketers want to transfer as much of the customer relationship online as possible. Social media on the surface seems a great way to do this.

Web 1.0 was cheap. Put a widget up, let people find it, and then let them “interact” with it – not nearly as expensive as a real person answering a phone and possibly more efficient. And the customer is probably even willing fill out an online form to order a product or receive customer service at a later date. That’s awesomely cheep.

The real-time web is changing all of that. The public now expects real-time answers to questions. Marketers entering the social media space and using Web 2.0 tools are feeding this perception. What’s the problem with that? It’s not yet scalable. And that equals so expensive. So it better have value beyond “friends.”

As more and more customers begin to expect direct interaction the more expensive implementing this is going to be. Where am I going with this? I think not only do most people not really want to be your brand’s “friend,” the ones that do are going to be expensive to keep. And if you can’t manage all those relationships, you can expect some blow back.

So whats a brand to do? Decide what’s valuable and provide that instead of engagement for engagement’s sake. Like I said earlier, there are some tried and true relationship models that have existed in business for years that don’t involve being anyone’s friend. And they create value to boot.

Why shouldn’t a sales guy, who already exists be answering product questions on a blog. Then his answers become searchable and create scalability in a positive direction instead of a negative one.

Why can’t a CSR field support questions on Twitter? No extra person required, just some training. Again, a scalability plus.

And why marketers are online, they can and should ask for the sale. Wouldn’t they in the real world? Isn’t that what representatives of businesses do. Of course, they shouldn’t be a jerk about it and butt into other people’s conversations.

So what about marketing? Isn’t that what we were supposed to be replacing with this whole friendship thing? Stay tuned.

Technorati Tags: interactive, New Media Atlanta, social media, Web 2.0

02.8.10

Monday morning ROI quarterbacking, ad Super Bowl of fiascos and some sentiment analysis

OK so you just dropped 2.5 million on media and another half million on production for what? Pissing off a of women who make up 52% of your demographic and influence almost every purchase on the planet. Great job Dodge, Bud Light, Dove. And Audi, really? Not like the Twitterverse wasn’t telling you don’t do it.

Now that I got all that off my chest, here’s a quick take on what the social sphere had to say about things in the macro sense. The USA Today admeter and just about everything else I’ve seen has picked out Doritos as the winner, then Google, and then Snickers. Snickers definitely saw a huge spike but not in the same league as Doritos. Google already has so much discussion online, running a TV spot on the Super Bowl doesn’t show as dramatic spike and it kinda ruins the graph, so I left it off. In case you’re wondering though, it does occupy a big chunk of the “super bow ads” conversation along with Tim Tebow. The Tim Tebow ad doesn’t win any creative awards but Focus On The Family made an excellent strategic play in creating buzz around their ad.

Ok. So we have some discussion but what does it all mean. For Doritos it has definitely moved sentiment in the right direction.

What would be downright frightening to see if one were a Dodge executive is the sentiment trend for the last two days. That was a big stinking pile of money to spend on an ad that pisses women off. Now only single men, who don’t ever want to date a woman will be able to buy that car. Good thing I drive a 10 year old Honda.

Technorati Tags: ads, Dodge ad, Doritos ad, Google ad, social media, social media monitoring tools

02.5.10

Award Shows. After all these years, I’m still conflicted.

Years ago, I used to get excited when the latest CA Annual was coming out so I could see what great work was happening at other agencies and what to aspire to next year. Over the years, the excitement of award season has faded but I still recognize value they create for their particpants.

Last night’s ADDYs were a success for the agency, we walked away with a bronze for our client Manheim in the direct marketing category and received a silver ADDYs for a website we built for The Bantam Group. It was work done for “real” clients that are very happy to know that they’re not the only ones who appreciated the work. This is good stuff. Great for client relationships and great for the moral of the people working their ass off to make great work and happy clients.

So why should I feel conflicted? Well, I have my reasons.

Reasons I don’t like award shows

Becaue you shouldn’t need confirmation from your peers that you’re doing good for your clients. You should just do good.

They bread cheating and irresponsible behavior from some agencies. Trust me, this isn’t an isolated incident.

Because there has been a little cronyism in these things over the years. I didn’t see that last night, but I’ve seen it.

I an iconoclast and I just can’t help going against the grain.

Reasons I love award shows

If you win just a few awards it can help your career.

They help agencies attract top talent.

Awards can help bring the right vendors to projects.

They can be a nice pat on the back for cubicle rats working in a business (award shows aside) that doesn’t do a lot of day-to-day back patting.

They are a great way to see what your peers are working on.

Open bars.

By my count, there are definitely more reasons to keep participating in the shows than not. So you’ll probably see me again next year, standing by the bar cheering friends on and hoping I’ll have good news for our clients in the morning.

Technorati Tags: ad agency atlanta, ADDYs, advertisng, Atlanta ADDYs, atlanta advertising agency, award shows, Show South

02.1.10

The creative strategy (or lack there of). Making your advertising make sense.

One of the benefits of working as a creative freelancer for seven years is I got to see how different agencies brief their clients and creative teams on how they’re planning to achieve advertising goals. Ideally, all this information is boiled down in a magical document called the creative strategy. In it’s best form, everything the client needs to approve the work and everything the creative team needs to execute the advertising should be distilled into a succinct, one page document.

Many agencies struggle with getting this right and many do it brilliantly. And most certainly, there are a lot of brand managers, account executives and planners who don’t have a firm grasp on what a creative team needs to turn their insights into brilliant work. So I write this with the best of intentions and hope this helps someone out there. And in the least, it lets a few creatives know what they should be getting from their strategy team.

Each paragraph represents a heading that should be written in a sentence or two – any longer and it means the strategy isn’t tight enough yet. The thinking is based on an old Bill Bernbach document that was handed down to me and has been refined over the years – not that I have the right to refine master, but I have done it anyway.

Objective – This is not a litany of all the problems the marketing department, the sales department and the executives tell the account team they have. An advertising campaign, whether done in print, TV or the Web should be focused on one single-minded problem that is solvable with advertising.  If it is not, well advertising probably isn’t the best solution. The objective is one simple sentence without compound direct objects. Don’t confuse this with a marketing communications plan. KISS.

A lot of briefs start out with “why are we advertising? or “background.” That’s fine, but these topics/headings often digresses and can end up confusing the objective.

Target: Back in the day of Bernbach this was a pretty simple answer. You were advertising to either mom, dad, grandma or junior. These days, planners and researchers are getting well past demographics and psyhcographics to technographics and even some new fangled thing called socialgrahics. Keep this a simple as possible while still explaining who this person is. As complicated as people are, their motivations are still pretty simple.

Current perception: How does the target feel about the brand or product you are advertising? Don’t complicate this and the above topic with psycho babble. You can put the babble in a supporting document if you really think it’s necessary and will help the creative team.

Unique selling position or key benefit: Not every product has a unique selling position (a subject for another post) but every creative strategy should include a key benefit. This is the single, best reason why someone would want to buy your product. If there isn’t one, you haven’t thought hard enough. Again, this should be a clear singular statement of fact.

Supporting points or “reasons why”: This is why a customer should believe the the key benefit. If it doesn’t support the above statement it is irrelevant and only serves to muddy your logic.

Single Sentence: This is stated for the consumers perspective and describes what the consumer should say to themselves after reading or watching your advertising. “I should buy acme brand cornflakes because they have more fiber.” While it may seem like a simple restatement of the key benefit it actually servers two purposes. It helps the strategy writer see if their key benefit sounds smart or ridiculous stated from the consumer’s perspective and gives the creative team a different window on what the advertising is supposed to do.

Media: What media is the work going to run in, on, will be built for or be broadcast on. I know it’s a new age, but simply list it out here – create a supporting document if you must.

Mandatories: This is where you tell your team if there’s a legal reason you have to include an FHA logo on the work, a copyright line, a disclaimer or you can’t use certain word without being sued.

This formula is deceptively short and simple but it’s not always easy to execute. If the writer does a good job on this everything that follows has a better chance of succeeding.

Account people, you may not know it, but you need this document to be smartly developed as much as your creative teams does. The better this is written and discussed with your client, the better the process of getting the client to sign off on the brief will be, the easier executing the work will be, and the more fun the selling the product will be.

ed note: This isn’t exactly the way we do it at Kilgannon (but not way off) and reflects my opinion only.

Technorati Tags: advertising, Advertising and Marketing, Brand, brand strategy, creative brief, creative strategy

01.27.10

Top 10 signs you’re a douchey agency type?

Now more than ever, we agency professionals cannot afford to have cliche’ agency jerks among our ranks. There’s enough tension with clients and providers thanks to the economic hardships. So please, if you recognize any of these behaviors as something you or your colleagues do, please do your best to put a stop to it.

1. Do you sigh every time a client opens their mouth to offer criticism?
2. Do you say things like, “obviously, you don’t understand” when you fail to properly explain the agency’s thinking?
3. Do you pretend to understand digital terms like analytics, UI, and RSS then blow them off as irrelevant or below your pay grade?
4. Do you put more effort in arguing about the size of the logo than improving your knowledge base?
5. Do you think SEO is someone else’s job?
6. Do you think web video is just another way to sell your 30 second TV spot?
7. Do you discount the client’s ideas without thinking how to improve them first?
8. Do you spend more time thinking about how you look than the way your work makes the client look?
9. Do you think pitching the client another iPhone apps makes you cutting edge?
10. Do you constantly refer to the awards you won during the last Ice Age?

I am not so sorry to say that you’ve been outmoded. The future doesn’t need you. Please get out of the business before you bring the ship down with you. The client’s never liked you and they’re beginning to figure out they don’t need you, your sporty clothes and fancy way of talking. They need someone with a deep understanding of digital, social and branding – who wants to be a real partner.

OK. OK. So I’m having a little fun. But I’m sure you can name a few agency jerk behaviors that are hurting our business.

Technorati Tags: Ad Agency, ad agency atlanta, advertising, marketing, Technology

01.15.10

Hey junior, wanna avoid producing #$2=@!. Or how to sell good work.

Fact of life, junior creative: not every client is going to buy your great work. Some will just wear you down until what finally runs is just bad. Why? Politics, bad taste, stupidity, or just plain arrogance. And in a good economy, great agencies fire them. But most agencies have clients that are there just to keep the lights on. Usually,  juniors get stuck working on them while the senior people work on the fun stuff.

But most clients will buy decent work, at least on occasion. And a lot of it has to do with how it’s presented, defended, and the steps that are taken once an impasse is met.

Presenting: Some people do better selling work by practicing. Others take improv classes. And some use salesman’s tricks. Then there are the personality sellers, a rare breed of agency rainmaker that can force the work through just by using their charm – you can often find these guys selling bad work just because they hate losing. I try to connect on a personal level and let the client know that I’m being honest and that I have their concerns in mind. I find this strategy almost always works better for existing clients.

Defending: Most people will try to use the rhetorical skills of a lawyer. But my most powerful tool is listening. Just listen to what they have to say. Don’t be quick to refute and make sure they’ve finished talking before you offer up a critique of their thinking. A lot of times they just need to work through things in their mind. And just by keeping your mouth shut you can sell a great idea. I used to work with an awesome media director who later became a client. He uses his body language to get the other guy to talk first and allow him to win the negotiation every time.

It’s good to keep in mind that clients aren’t paid to have taste. (That’s actually your creative director’s job.) Their job is to drive incremental sales for the company. So qualitative arguments will often loose. A particularly blunt boss once reminded me, “this isn’t fucking Cannes, Jimmy.” No it wasn’t. And “artistic” arguments were never going to win the day. If you have to argue with them do it using their terms and goals, never yours.

Next steps: Don’t agree to any specific changes at the meeting. Take good notes (or make sure your AE is) and let them know you’re going to look at all of their suggestions and you’ll be coming back with solutions.

Bogusky calls these “change moments” and says to embrace them and make them positive.

If they’re insisting on something bad, try and figure out why. Most people have reasons why they’re suggesting something – although they don’t always share them unless they’re asked. Getting answers may feel like pulling teeth because some clients don’t want to share their motives – they’re not always positive. This can be hard. If it weren’t, every agency professional would be doing great work and the award annuals would be much thicker.

Unfortunately, sometimes you have to move on because the client refuse to buy anything good. After all, they’re paying. But that’s not your decision, it’s your creative directors. If you do punt, don’t give up on selling something good. Find something else to work on pro-bono or take on a side client to crank out some good stuff for the award shows yourself.

Technorati Tags: advertising, advertising atlanta, art direction, copy, Copywriter, selling creative, selling work

01.13.10

Time to stop pussy footing, creative folks.

Technorati Tags: advertising, Atlanta, bloggers, Copywriter, copywriting, jimmy gilmore, social media, Web 2.0

01.8.10

The risk reward index. Or are you trying hard enough to embarras yourself?

Back in the days when I used to produce a lot of television spots, I sat through hundreds and hundreds of the most awkward auditions. Some were more like an American Idol outtakes show than you’d like to believe. Why? Because actors are willing to take huge risks to get an opportunity to do something great. Even if it means utter and shameful embarrassment.

That’s something advertising people are not too willing to do these days. Maybe because the job market is so tight that people aren’t willing to stick there neck out. Sure, we may be a media revolution these days, but we’re certainly not a creative one.

This lack of risk taking is in stark contrast to the hundreds of actors willing to make complete asses of themselves just to work on a television campaign. Standing out in that crowd is difficult to say the least. Actors seriously have to put it on the line every day if they’re going to do more than starve or wait tables. So it’s not only humbling to watch them do it, it’s very educational seeing other creative people taking risks that big.

We advertising people think we’re so creative but just how often do we put ourselves on the line in the same way. And I don’t mean by doing an edgy ad – that’s not risky, that’s expected. I mean doing something truly risky. Something that will get you called into the bosses office or called out by a client. Or worse, something that you could be embarrassed by suggesting.

So what’s truly risky? Using technology in a completely new way. Applying real creativity to a new media instead of letting concepts spin out of the print ads or TV spots – (remember the landscape has changed). What about not even presenting an ad at all. Or how about killing the big idea and presenting lots of little ones.

Are you willing to embarrass yourself by trying something risky?

Technorati Tags: Ad Agency, ads, advertising, awkward, risk vs reward, television actors

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