What is going on in the Ad Agency space
May 29, 2007
Sears Holdings MPG
MPG was awarded the $740 million Sears Holdings media account. The agency bested MindShare, MEC Interaction, Carat and Horizon Media for the win. The work includes media planning and buying duties on both Sears and Kmart brands.
Lowe’s Tribal DDB
Tribal DDB Worldwide was named digital agency of record by Lowe’s Companies. Tribal Chicago is charged with developing and implementing all e-marketing initiatives. The agency will work with OMD Digital to develop a media analysis and performance strategy. New work will launch next quarter.
Miller High Life Saatchi & Saatchi
Saatchi & Saatchi has been named agency of record for Miller High Life.
Pittsburgh Brewing Company Smith Brothers Advertising
Smith Brothers Advertising is resigning the Pittsburgh Brewing Company account after a five-year run. The account has been placed in review and the agency opted not to defend.
Cost Plus GSD&M
GSD&M was named agency of record for Cost Plus World Market stores. The account is estimated at $60 million.
Lincoln Financial In Review
Lincoln Financial placed its $30 million advertising account in review. Incumbent Martin/Williams will defend.
Long John Silver’s In Review
Long John Silver’s placed the creative portion of its $45 million account in review. Element 79 presently handles the account and will defend.
U.S. Census Bureau In Review
Ogilvy & Mather, DraftFCB, Young & Rubicam, GSD&M, Campbell-Ewald and JWT are pitching the $200 million U.S. Census Bureau 2010 campaign.
Glenora Wine Cellars Stand Advertising
Glenora Wine Cellars has named Stand Advertising as its first advertising agency of record. The winery’s initial distribution outside N.Y. State will be introduced via Internet advertising, Web site development, direct mail, corporate I.D. and P-O-P. First work will break this summer.
EnergyUnited Eric Mower and Associates
EnergyUnited named Eric Mower and Associates as its agency of record. EMA will provide advertising, public relations, interactive, marketing and branding services to the company.
Victorinox Swiss Army WHITTMANHART Interactive
WHITTMANHART Interactive was named interactive advertising agency of record for Victorinox Swiss Army.
Source:Â Media Post
Life at an Advertising Agency
May 27, 2007
Life at an Advertising Agency
They hate us
Reading though Ad Agency Blogs we get some nasty uptakes in terms of what is being thought of Search Marketing and Optimization firms. They really hate us.
It’s something that I really don’t know how to phrase or work with. A few weeks ago we discussed this one firm that was almost ‘stealing money from their client’. Their client was spending tens of thousands each month on Ad Words, and tens of thousands more on traditional media venues to try to promote their products each month. Their Ad Agency noted that they ‘know how Google Works’ and fed them a line of ‘trust me I can rank you for anything’.
About 6 months into the venture, and consistently ranking for nothing, the company in question hired us to fix their problem. Their problem was rather simple from an SEO perspective. Their entire site was one massive 302 redirect. Even the most newish SEO knows that nothing good comes from 302 redirects, yet this ad agency was bilking the client thousands in SEO fees and then since ‘Google doesn’t rank you due to no fault of the ad agency’ the Agency forced the client to pay their billable hours for Ad Words. In essance the client was facing massive advertising costs for something that should of never been done in the first place.
Think about it this way and let’s slim down the figures to make it easier for people to understand. They in fact were spending FAR more than mentioned below, but for simplicity sake let’s keep the figures small.
They were spending 100 dollars a month for Ad Words
They were spending 100 dollars a month for the Ad Agency SEO campaign
They were spending 500 dollars a month on traditional Advertising
They were spending 75 dollars a month at the Ad Agency to manage the Ad Words Campaign
They were spending 100 dollars on Banners and other Online Media Ads
They were spending 300 dollars a month at the Ad Agency to manage the Traditional Advertising Campaign
They were spending 50 dollars to the Ad Agency to manage the Banners and other online media
They spent a 1 time fee of 1000 dollars to build the website (this fee went to the ad agency)
total spent per month: ~$1225
total spent for one time fees: ~$1000
total spent over 6 months until problem was identitifed and corrected: $8350
Total Waste in Campaign out of total budget – $3550 or about %43 of the budget was waste.
What was was effective?
The traditional Ad Agency’s offline ads were somewhat effective. It was a mixture of print media ads, billboards and a few other ads that did get some buzz. Not bad. I would say that the $800 spent (500 on Media, 300 to manage) was not that bad of an investment and went about average on what would be considered a successful campaign. In our professional view, it was worth the effort.
Now let’s look at their online ads.
The banners faced a horrific click though rate, and as most people know, no one clicks on those things, and for branding purposes they were not targeted correctly in our personal opinion. This lead to pretty much a waste of money.
-150 dollars wasted (100 for media purchase and 50 to the ad agency to manage)
Looking at the ad Agency SEO campaign. It was a joke since the site was literally one big 302 redirect (I must add to the fact that the ad agency designed the site.. so the Ad agency billed them to build this horrific site and then billed the client again to fix the problem they created). Total Spent over the course of 6 months : $1600 (the website cost is included in this since it was the ‘big selling point’ the Ad agency had in building this site. (I want to stress something in this regards, you can add two zeros to the figure to get an idea of the magnitude of this ripoff)
By the time all is said and done, the Ad Agency bilked them nearly 1/2 the Ad Budget allocated to a total waste of effort that’s sole mission was to keep the dollars rolling in to the ad agency.
The website eventually ranked well without the 302 redirects, the ad words campaign was able to be reduced as the client started to rank for terms they should of in the first place, and last but not least the money saved with the banner campaign was removed and part of it allocated to a more robust Ad Words campaign. Meaning that the client went from losing nearly 50% in waste to about 8% in waste. It was a dramatic increase in ROI, and this took place over the course of 3 weeks. The lasting 8% is much more difficult as their is always some waste in ROI Ad Campaigns (IE: click fraud, bad copy on Ad Words Sets, newspaper ads that should of never been bought, etc etc).
The message — Ad Agencies don’t belong on the Internet.
Mark Shuttleworth deserves to be Time Magazine Man of the Year
May 24, 2007
On the heels of Dell Selling Ubuntu Machines today we should all realize that out of every single threat that Microsoft has faced in the past, now is perhaps the most threatening to them.
The four major problems for Microsoft are Google, Ubuntu, Firefox and Open Office.
Google for virtually denying Microsoft an significant Entry to the Internet
Firefox for providing a very innovative browser that made IE look primitive by comparison.
Open Office for saving companies boatloads of money in licensing fees
and last by not least, Mark Shuttleworth the CEO of Ubuntu, the first person to successfully challenge Microsoft’s dominance on the desktop.
The point we are trying to make is that the 4 companies / projects listed above have actually made a difference for many firms and individuals.
Currently I am typing this from an Ubuntu Box, Running Firefox, and I have been using Open Office all day.
The point that is trying to be proven is that for once Linux has proven to be user friendly enough that end users, the non-techie types, can be proprietary software free. No amount of Advertising Agency spending could change a shift in the marketplace.
Are we saying Microsoft is dead? The answer is a flat no. It’s not dead but as the evolution of any company in history as proven there is a growth spurt, followed by a flat top and then generally declines over time.
Microsoft’s flat top is over.
We feel that the actual start of the Microsoft Decline could be noted today, as Dell is now offering a Linux OS as standard for several models of a standard X86 platform. This is a historical day.
For decades people could of bought a Mac and had nifty features, but this isn’t a Mac, it’s an AMD or Intel Processor that uses the same hardware as what traditionally is on a Microsoft Platform. It’s not just a computer, it’s the same type of computer that would of been running XP or Vista.
Hence why there should be some sort of acknowledgment that today is a historical day. Â It’s Mark Shuttleworth’s day, May 24th, 2007.
U.S. Cellular signs Starcom
May 24, 2007
U.S Cellular AMEX:USM moved it’s $100 million-plus advertising account to Publicis & Hal Riney and Publicis Groupe media sibling Starcom NYSE:PUB
The move was expected, however their choice is awkward.
US Cellular has about 10% the market share of AT&T and US Cellular would need to be more
efficient in it’s marketing budget as to compete with the bigger players.
So the assumption would be that they would move more towards an interactive approach with heavy use of Search Engine Optimization. Instead they choose an Ad Agency that presents itself with a blank page in a Google Text Cache.
Pretty much violating every practical Google Guideline ever created.
Use a text browser such as Lynx to examine your site, because most search engine spiders see your site much as Lynx would. If fancy features such as JavaScript, cookies, session IDs, frames, DHTML, or Flash keep you from seeing all of your site in a text browser, then search engine spiders may have trouble crawling your site.
US Cellular should of at least considered that aspect when choosing an Ad Agency.
Linux Darwin Awards – Worst 5 companies regarding Linux Support
May 22, 2007
It appears to be a ground swell campaign for these firms to support Linux in their products.
Mark Shuttleworth: Microsoft is not the real threat
May 21, 2007
Mark Shuttleworth deserves to be Time Magazine’s Man of the Year. He is 10000% correct in the fact that software should never be allowed to be patented. It’s akin to patenting Mathematics. Software Patents are a hindrance to progress, not a motivator.
When someone has downloaded source code, it’s not the same thing as downloading an MP3. They are downloading it to make additions or modify the code to do something that it couldn’t do before. If that software is patented, and they are not allowed to make it do other things. Progress has been stopped not increased. The patent system model breaks when it comes to source code.
Much has been written about Microsoft’s allegation of patent infringements in Linux (by which I’m sure they mean GNU/Linux ;-) ). I don’t think Microsoft is the real threat, and in fact, I think Microsoft and the Linux community will actually end up fighting on the same side of this issue.
Who is bidding for what – Events in the Ad Agency Space
May 21, 2007
Verizon McCann Worldgroup
Verizon consolidated the majority of its $1.9 billion advertising and media work with McCann Worldgroup. The company narrowed its agency roster of 20 down to 10.
U.S. Cellular Publicis & Hal Riney
U.S. Cellular awarded Publicis & Hal Riney creative duties on its $50 million advertising account. Doner previously handled the account.
Sylvan Publicis
Publicis was awarded creative duties on the $80 million Sylvan account. The agency bested incumbent Doner for the win.
Miller Lite Bartle Bogle Hegarty
Bartle Bogle Hegarty was awarded creative duties on Miller Brewing’s Miller Lite account. Crispin Porter + Bogusky previously handled the account. The agency bested Saatchi & Saatchi and Young & Rubicam for the win.
Virgin Airways In Review
Virgin Airways placed its creative and media account in review. The $5 million account was previously handled by Crispin Porter + Bogusky, who will not defend.
Smith Barney In Review
Young & Rubicam, McCann-Erickson and Gardner Nelson & Partners are finalists in the running for Smith Barney’s $35 million creative and media account. Incumbent Hill Holliday did not defend.
H. Lee Moffitt Fry Hammond Barr
Fry Hammond Barr was selected by H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center & Research Institute to provide an integrated communications program including public relations, brand management and advertising throughout Florida and nationally.
Metromix Leo Burnett
Leo Burnett has been awarded creative and media chores on the $10 million Metromix account. The agency bested Digitas and DDB for the win.
Caterpillar AccessAccount Card Beyer & Associates
Beyer & Associates will handle strategic and creative duties as well as media planning and buying for the Caterpillar AccessAccount.
Source : Media Post
Microsoft is buying aQuantive (the company that operates Avenue A/Razorfish)
May 18, 2007
This is great stuff, on the heels of Google Buying Double Click and WPP buying 24/7 real media Microsoft is now the owner of Avenue A/Razorfish. The value for internet marketing firms has just increased as traditional ad agencies to firms like Microsoft now see the value of having one of these on board.
As noted earlier, we have seen a tremendous increase in volume in terms of business towards Internet Marketing Firms, especially the ones that have a very strong search engine optimization standpoint recently and have expected this to happen for over a year now.
Firms that specialize in SEO would generally be accepted as the ones with the highest value, especially if they had a few larger clients. It allows a traditional ad agency to pretty much instantly establish a relationship with a industry diverse client list that would allow an agency to expand on that client to take over a larger part of their business.
It also allows a traditional ad agency the skill set to offer additional services to it’s existing client list.
Sometimes it takes a visionary at a large firm to start the ball rolling, in the past two weeks we have seen three.
Ad Agency WPP Group to try to ‘Fight Google’ with 24/7 real media
May 17, 2007
As we predicted over a year ago, WPP group has purchased 24/7 Real Media for $649 Million. This is the first of many purchases that Ad Agencies will make into the Internet Marketing space.
The WPP group feels that they could compete with Google with this purchase and the CEO of WPP noted ‘we want Google to view us as a frienemy’
Interesting choice of words.
WPP group is primitive by our standards and opinion in terms of online marketing. The group has yet to purchase a larger SEO firm for example, and most of the projects we reviewed that WPP built had the ‘ad agency addition’ to flash as the basis of the sites. Their goal is currently to become a competitor to Google Ad Words.
We do hope that their efforts do better than Microsoft’s attempt.
Ask us if Ask’s Ad Agency is offensive – Digg and Ask making money from Terrorists
May 17, 2007
The Unabomber was a terrorist. So why is Ask and Digg (where the ad was found) making money from a Terrorist’s name?
This is a screen shot from Digg where the Ad was found
Digg should stop hosting these ads that use the names of terrorists, and Ask’s ad agency should be fired. period.
A terrorist that has killed people does not belong on a company ad.
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