Phil's Blog

Maybe I'm Amazed

"Your mother may think you're cute. Me? I'm not impressed." - Judge Judy

1. It happened in 1987. "Bad" began to mean "good." Now I fear it has happened again - in reverse. "Good" now means "bad." Call me crazy or cranky but what passes for "good" today would have been classified as "bad" (as in something negative) just a few years ago. Like a "good restaurant," a "good politician" or a "good ad agency." Does no one exercise or care about the quality of judgement anymore?

2. After the White House gatecrashers and Balloon Boy episodes, it seems clear that anyone can be famous for nothing. Andy Warhol was wrong. Fame lasts longer than fifteen minutes. But it doesn't pay unless people buy their books.

3. Finally, please tell me why it is that digital ad agencies continually reveal in presentations that they absolutely positively do not understand the Internet? 

You may not be able to make money from recognizing numbers 1 or 2 above, but you can with number 3. 

Phil

Daddy, What's A Newspaper? -- Part 4

"The print media are like a slowly melting ice cube." - Phil Schwartz

When I started this series about the decline of newspapers (several years ago), I had no idea how much denial newspaper publishers would have. Now, it's turned seriously stupid.

The stages of newspapers' demise:

1. Denial of the Internet. It's a fad for kids.

2. Pain and Guilt. We'll have to cut a few jobs. Maybe we should have stopped typesetting sooner and saved money.

3. Anger and Bargaining. Grr. Those damn unions. Those damn advertisers. Those damn M&A guys.

4. Depression and Loneliness. Woe is me. Where are the evening papers? Where's the home delivery? Why don't young people like us?

5. The Upward Turn. Well, at least we've got millions and millions of dollars in classifieds. Uh oh. Craig's List, Ad Words and others are stealing our bread and butter. 

6. Reconstruction. We'll make the paper smaller. We'll summarize the news in two pages. We'll raise our price. We will build newspaper Web sites and all will come! Hooray! What's that? The Web is more than just putting our news content online? You mean we have to compete with news sites like CNN and Yahoo?

7. Acceptance. Never! We'll show them all by denying Google our content unless they pay for it. We'll die before we give in.  

The times they are a changin'. And the Globe. And the Herald. And the Bulletin...

THIS JUST IN: The Washington Post is closing its New York, Chicago and Los Angeles bureaus.

Phil

Shhh! Google is a Medium.

Google Chairman and CEO, Eric Schmidt, has stated many times that Google is a tech company not a media company.

In reality, Google is a medium itself. There are newspapers (RIP), magazines (Get well soon), radio, outdoor, television and Google.

With 68-plus percent of all online Search and about $21 billion in annual advertising revenues (bigger than magazines and radio combined), Google is essentially a medium unto itself.

But don't tell the government. They'll have congressional committees investigating. Then, they'll regulate and dumb it down. Or up.

THIS JUST IN: Similar to what it did with Dish Network in April, Google has teamed up with TiVo in data-sharing. Google will offer advertisers second-by-second viewing data enhancing its pay-per-impression model. Further, Google will likely provide the opportunity for advertisers to change their ad schedules on a real-time basis.

Did you just feel the earth move? Must be those other media moving tectonic plates.

Virtual Word-of-Mouth Media

"Word of mouth is the best medium of all."  -Bill Bernbach

Today, Facebook and Twitter are so dominant in the communications that most people have with friends that they are virtually equivalent to word-of-mouth. 

This is an important recognition because word-of-mouth has always been considered the most effective medium in marketing and branding leading to more purchases than any television, radio, print, outdoor or online efforts.

32 percent of large brands using and experimenting with Facebook and Twitter. More will join them, of course, but it seems to me those that figure out first whether it works for them can succeed there over their competitors. Of course, when it comes to conversing with customers, their own Web site should come first.

Phil

 

Consulting For You -- A Fourth Anniversary

This blog celebrates its fourth anniversary this month. Hooray!

To celebrate, here is my very first blog post from November 2005:

“My greatest strength as a consultant is to be ignorant and ask a few questions.” --Peter F. Drucker After I retired from 30 years at General Mills, Six Flags and, on the agency side, from Campbell-Mithun (Minneapolis) and my own advertising agency partnerships, I traveled, I relaxed and I taught for a semester at the University of Florida. But I became a little bored. What to do? I love capitalism and, especially, marketing and advertising. So I became a part-time marketing consultant, part-time retiree. In the first two years of this new consulting career, I have been hired to coordinate ad agency (and PR firm) reviews. I have also helped advertisers (aka "clients") to negotiate better, often less expensive compensation agreements. I love it. If you and your management want to improve your marketing, conduct an agency review, negotiate a better compensation agreement, please call or email me. Let’s talk. Thank you. Phil Schwartz

Digital Ads Turn Fifteen Today

This was the very first banner ad ever placed. The date was October 26, 1994 and the advertiser was AT&T. 

With an extraordinary 78% click-through rate, this 468 x 60 banner ad ran on HotWired.com

Congratulations!

To Be Digital or Not To Be

Report from the agency search front:

Lately, when ad agencies claim capabilities in digital products, the question is not whether you create iPhone apps. It's -- How many have you created / are you creating?

Phil

Ad Age: Undermining Advertising Since 1930

"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage." - Anais Nin

Most adages teach us something positive. Not Ad Age which over the years has helped turn advertising into a commodity more than any officer in an advertising holding company ever could. 

This post isn't going to be a love mark for the Crain publication. They've supported the mergers and acquisitions of thirty years that lead to a lack of confidence in advertising by agencies themselves and, as a result, advertisers. They've promulgated their drivel with guys like Al Ries (of the 'iPhone will fail' fame), Bob Garfield (a toxic anti-capitalist) and a front man named Rance Crain who could win the Pulitzer Prize for Destructive Boredom if there were such a thing.

Today, for example, Ad Age tells us that Crispin Porter + Bogusky hasn't helped Burger King surpass McDonald's in the five years it has handled the entire account suggesting therefore that it has failed. Ad Age is once again trying to eat its young.

Make up your minds, boys. Can advertising be effective or not? Never mind answering. You've made clear your views.

Closing adage acronym: TANSTAAFL ("There ain't no such thing as a free lunch." - Robert Heinlien)

Mommy, what's a newspaper?

Almost four years ago, I wrote a blog post "Daddy, what's a newspaper?" which forecast the decline in newspaper appeal and circulation. Since then, I've posted three updates.

Newspapers have failed for most part when adding an online version because they've done so without any marketing strategy whatsoever. None. Weil, unless you count putting the paper online as an actual marketing thought.

Inevitable failure comes for many reasons. They're cheap about it, both in spending and planning. They use juniors to do the conversion, those recently out of tech school who know nothing about marketing. And, principally because they, as many clients have done, assume that the Web is simply a print vehicle without paper.

This lazy, uneducated view is still being espoused. Here's an excerpt from a September 21st interview with Tina Gaudoin, editor of The Wall Street Journal magazine on WWD.com: "Asked if the online-only issues specifically would be adapted for the Web, Gaudoin replied: 'They’ll be specifically adapted in the sense that it’ll be online. It will include the same length, the same quality, the same integrity as the magazine.'"  

The more things change, the more non-thinkers fall behind.

Phil

The Second Round

I'll make this short because it's not sweet.

In the last month, I've spoken with at least fifty ad agencies and twenty public relations firms, from small to very large. Almost every one of them has gone through a second round of cuts, cutbacks and tightening due to the decline in business. Many have plans for a third if their financial picture doesn't improve before the end of October.

And desperate times are resulting in desperate measures on other fronts as well. Having seen the storm confronted by many agencies, I have developed actionable strategies to deal with it. (Hint: there's more than just an umbrella.)

Phil