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

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

Coming tomorrow: The absolute best ad agency site on the Web.

You will agree. 

Tomorrow, I will reveal what is absolutely, positively the best Web site of any advertising agency in the United States, its possessions, outlying islands and much of the rest of the world.

But there's a catch. You will have to email me to get the link. See how lead-building is done?

Phil

Odds and Ends, Literally

Here are a few things that from my recent reviews that I found quite odd. And they helped guarantee that the agency doing them didn't win.

• About halfway into their presentation, one agency brought in a string quartet to play. While I cannot reveal their reason (which related to the client's product), it quickly became uncomfortable for almost everyone.
• Twice I have seen agencies order pizza at the beginning of their pitches promising to end when the pizza arrived. In each case, they were right; the pizza arrived at "the end."
• Please no a cappella either. One agency's presenters formed a sorta barbershop quartet and sang. Sadly for them, there was no harmony.

These are not the only odd occurrences. I'll tell some more stories in coming weeks. Like the one where the agency used water balloons...

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)

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

Never, My Love.

Somewhere in the distant past, ad agencies got the idea that their clients loved them. While that love has faded a bit during down economic times, love will return again.

Creatives, who usually require confirmation of the quality of their work, have always craved praise. One only needs to see the plethora of awards competitions as evidence. Media, account and research folks have few awards and get little recognition as great planners, thinkers and analysts.

What many agency people fail to recognize, however, is that clients seldom think of any personality, product or company other than theirs. When agencies are with them, they talk about themselves and their brands. That's what their agencies talk about, too. Most clients, except those in management who negotiate agency contracts, never think of their agencies as businesses.

Nevertheless, I meet agency principal after agency principal waiting for the recession to end and for clients to love them once more. 

Friends, they never have and they never will.

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."