Phil's Blog

Impressions of a Search Consultant

Ad agency searches or reviews are all about the impression that you make on the prospect client and their selection committee. It's really as simple as that.

If you need some assistance regarding that impression, and I believe you do, please email me. After more than 50 reviews, I can help.

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.

Free Research(for an unlimited time only)

"When designing your Web presence, be certain you will be listening to your customers."

Every organization's Web site should promote conversations with your customers and potential customers. It's the cheapest research you can do. 

Being social is part of our makeup and allowing feedback and questions is essential to the success of your Web presence. Obviously, you may not heed all the advice you receive. You may disagree with criticisms as well. Still you will understand your market better and receive guidance that will help in the further development of your site, your message and your interaction with loyal customers.

Plus it's essentially free.

Phil

Ptich Different

sem·i·nal / ˈsemənl/

adj. 1. (of a work, event, moment, or figure) strongly influencing later developments: his seminal work on chaos theory. (Encyclopedia.com) 

This is a seminal moment in marketing and advertising. Digital alternatives and an historic recession are hitting companies led by officers who are reluctant to risk money, plan ahead and try new strategies.

It's a time when understanding how to pitch is more important than ever. Traditional pitches are being made by newly remade agencies and new "digital" companies. Most of their pitches don't work.

Pitch your new business in a way that will win you votes from selection committees and, ultimately, win you the account.

The first step is to email me.

The second step is much harder. Let me tell you what it is.

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

In a recent agency review, I am absolutely certain that none of the agencies participating in the review ever heard the word. The word I am referring to is a verb. It refers to one thing none of the agencies did. In fact, few agencies do it. That word is

rehearse.

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

Lee Clow said

"Impact requires craft."

"Try asking your doctor to do a little angioplasty on spec."

"If you'd put it in your Powerpoint deck, don't put it in your ad."

"New does not necessarily equal good. Old does not necessarily equal bad. Exercise wisdom accordingly."

Whine Not.

"A person, who is nice to you, but rude to a waiter, is not a nice person." - Dave Barry

"A potential client who is not nice to you is not going to award you the account." - Phil Schwartz

After advising 54 advertising agency reviews, I've observed quite an array of company presidents, CMOs and other senior managers as they make the decisions about which ad agency gets the advertising assignment and which ones don't. In many cases, it hasn't been pretty.

Principally, there's a lack of respect for service companies. It may stem from suspicion or jealously or past experiences. Wherever it comes from, you should get some advice from a "fly on the wall" such as me. 

My counsel can be a full-day discussion with your agency's management or advice on pitching and winning your next review. 

When you think of the cost to pitch accounts these days, you might want to learn as much as you can about things like selection committee discussions, what must be said by agencies to prospects and critical mistakes made by agencies that prevent success.

So, please e me to begin the conversation.

Phil

Crowd Magnet at a Trade Show

Very few companies understand how to market themselves and their products at a trade show. Proof can be found in two forms. First, walk down the aisle of any trade show, consumer or industry, and count how often you are even slightly enticed by design or by humans to enter a booth. The number will be small. Second, observe who at the company is given responsibility for trade show marketing. You will discover it varies wildly and is often split up between two or more departments. All this is plainly wacky considering how much it costs to rent a booth; build, furnish and ship a display; supply collateral materials and pay for travel expenses and sales people to man (and woman) the booth for 3 days. Here are the key objectives of trade show marketing: 1. Draw qualified attendees to your booth, 2. Teach attendees about your product(s) and 3. Obtain their contact information for follow up by sales people at and after the show. In my experience, the consistently successful solution in getting qualified trade and consumer show attendees to enter your booth, learn about your product, and willingly leave their information is to hire David Stahl, who calls himself: the Crowd Magnet. On a 26-inch platform, in a booth 10 feet square, even in an obscure area of the exhibit hall, Stahl can bring into the booth at least 25% of the attendees walking the floor at a given moment. Yes, 25%. The booths around you should be pleased. And, he works from your product creative brief to tell, even teach, booth visitors key points about your product before he turns them over to your sales people. He does 4-5 (different) performances a day. He’s been doing them for 25 years, mostly in tech and finance shows plus many consumer shows. He is nothing short of amazing. In a 2-3 day show, he will attract almost everyone in the hall at least once. Visit his site.

Phil