ad agency | Margie Albert

Tag: ad agency

Today’s remark – (boring) scripts are not ideas

– Posted on May 21, 2012 by Margie Albert

A friend of mine recently became a GM at a TV station. He came up through the ranks without a sales background. I asked what his biggest surprise was in his new role. His answer? The salespeople were not focused on the customers’ success! He said he looked at several proposals – all were very pretty but they were all about his station. Lots of statistics and why the customer should buy TV and even what programs they should buy but nothing very creative directed at the client from the client’s point of view. He was shocked.

I see the same thing everywhere. Lots of the same old “your commercial will be seen by X number of A25-54” with some Marshall Marketing or Scarborough thrown in to make it look more customized. The research justifies the schedule. And sometimes a script was included. That’s about it.

Any station can do that and most stations do.

What will set you apart is your idea – an idea specifically designed for your advertiser focused completely on their best customer for the product they are featuring. Ideas that will break through the noise and make that best customer want to engage with your advertiser. An idea that intertwines all delivery systems (website, mobile, email, etc) to maximize impact on that consumer and give them multiple engagement points. An idea that compels that best customer to interact and respond with the advertiser because she simply must!

There’s a reason ad agencies come to stations all the time asking for ideas. It’s because they figured it out long ago. To remain relevant to the advertiser it isn’t just about cpp’s or whether they use TV, radio or door-hangers. To the advertiser it’s about establishing a relationship between them and their consumer and relationships are established with relevant compelling ideas.

I know you’ve heard this before but why do proposals today look so similar to proposals done 10 years ago? Basically, they all say “Use TV, use my station and here’s a (boring) script!”

People who take the time to really think and identify the advertiser’s needs and create and develop great ideas to establish the relationship between the advertiser and consumer will always be remark-able.

“The End of Advertising As We Know It”

– Posted on Sep 28, 2009 by Margie Albert

IBM just published a study entitled “The End of Advertising as We Know It” and the opening sentence is “The next 5 years will hold more change for the advertising industry than the previous 50 did.” Hard to argue that one!

This study, based on 2,400 consumers and 80 advertising “experts”, reveals 4 change drivers shifting control within the industry (excerpts):

Attention – consumers are increasing their control as they adopt ad-skipping, sharing and rating tools. Their survey suggests personal PC time now rivals TV time with 71% using the Internet more than two hours per day verses just 48% spending the equivalent time watching TV.

Creativity – amateurs and semi-professionals are creating lower cost and extremely effective advertising content. UGC content sites are growing rapidly and were the top destination for viewing online content attracting 39% of respondents.

Measurement – advertisers are demanding more individual-specific and involvement-based measurements which pouts great pressure on traditional mass-market models. Two-thirds of the advertising experts polled expect 20% of ad revenue to shift from impression-based to impact-based formats within just 3 short years.

Advertising Inventories – The panel expects 30% of ad revenues to shift from traditional proprietary sales models to placement/auction platforms within the next 5 years. As revenues shift in response to consumer fragmentation it will no longer be efficient to have dedicated platforms for each channel. Market forces will move the industry to open, dynamic platforms capable of following a customer by serving messaging across multiple channels.

So, what can you do?

Welcome consumer innovation
Adjust your external business model
Adjust your design and infrastructure

“For both incumbent and new players, it is imperative to plan for multiple consumer futures, craft agile strategies and build new capabilities before advertising as we know it disappears”.

What are YOUR thoughts and plans?

The Complete Report (28 pages) End of Adv as We Know It

Executive Summary (2 pages) End of Adv As We Know It Summary

Is The Obvious Choice YOU?

– Posted on Sep 09, 2009 by Margie Albert

Recently, Clive Maclean Consulting wrote about what elements cause an ad agency review. These factors affect any type of relationship review!

Lack of pro-active thinking

Lack of fresh ideas

Lack of cohesiveness

Mediocre work

Client driven by ROI, analytics and measurement, you focused on gut feel and award winning creative

Disconnect between strategy and creative concepts

Gap in price/value perspective

Inflexibility, not agile enough

However, the biggest contributor is the client’s perception you don’t share their worries and ultimately don’t care if they succeed or not.

Do you REALLY care? Do you FEEL their pain when they don’t achieve the success they anticipated? Are you listening along the way? Do you treat their business as if it is YOUR business? Are you providing the very best work you can every day?

Do you approach their business as an opportunity to contribute to THEIR prosperity? Or do you treat their business as a way to make a buck and move on to the next?

In today’s world of choice is the obvious choice YOU?