We wanted to introduce ourselves at the Tribble Ad Agency, an agency based on the Star Trek ™ Tribbles. A creature that looked great to have, but boy did they consume resources and deliver nothing in return.
We feel this is a perfect example of what we intend to do.
Ad Agencies generally look great at first, they wine and dine you, show you flashy presentations and after the contract is signed they eat all the resources from your company. We love for example to build websites out of 100% flash so that the search engines can’t spider it then bill you additional hours for search engine marketing fees. This is great for our business model because that way you are tied to us for the rest of your natural born life. We also love to use image navigation and ‘click here’ as our text navigation. We feel it’s comical to see your pages go into the abyss of Google, Yahoo and MSN never to be found. Though it’s possible that we have no clue what we are doing, since there is no such thing as an Ad Agency that understands Search Engine Optimization (though we can try to sell it as a billable search marketing fee after you discover that your flash inspired pages never will rank).
Our Business Model is simple, never build something that could really help your company without our billable fees and it has worked like a charm.
We always knew that our industry is changing more towards online marketing, with the kingpin being search engine optimization, but we allowed other firms to take this over. We can normally get away with just telling the client that ‘we don’t control Google Results’ (Which isn’t a lie). However we can’t explain away why we built the site in Flash so it can’t be spidered (That would be a lie).
Truth be told Ad Agencies such as the Tribble Ad Agency got the rug swept out from under us and we never realized it until it was too late. The entire planet moved to Google, Yahoo and MSN organic results and we were making print ads for magazines and our online marketing efforts yielded 100% unspiderable Flash websites that generated no traffic.
We never wanted to admit that there are at most 10 or so respectable Search Engine Optimization firms on earth, and none of them are ad agencies. We didn’t even want to admit that we don’t even rank for the term Marketing Agency in Yahoo, instead on page one there is a Search Engine Optimization firm. We don’t get it, we never did.
What happened to our golden days? When the client would be happy with an Ad in BusinessWeek(tm) and not care for page one rankings?
Those days are gone and we are going to have to face that the ad agency of the future is not us, and because of the lack of talent out there (such a small pool of search engine optimization experts) that we must make hard choices such as to outsource it to them, have our clients bypass us and go directly to them, or just buy them outright.
The latter choice seems to be the least expensive. How did we find ourselves into this hole? ‘Page 400 in the search engines is not a marketing plan’ is the motto for one of the SEO firms. We should of seen the writing on the wall.
It’s not what we did in the past, it’s what we are doing now and in the future. We have no plan for search engine optimization, and these SEO firms are growing so fast that we might not be able to even afford to buy them in the future.
Blast You Google, Yahoo and MSN. You stole our thunder and changed the entire nature of the ad agency. These SEO and SEM firms are literally the next generation of Ad Agencies, we just don’t realize that yet.
Clients demand flash and then fuss when they don’t rank even locally for their search terms. I’ve gotten to the point that if a flash site is wanted we insist on an html one as well.
I love flash but a gorgeous site is useless if no one sees it. And you can run ads constantly but that’s very costly and you shouldn’t depend on it as your only source of traffic. SEO is the gift that keeps on giving…
To Ed Dunn’s post, June 20, 2006; 8:56PM
Ed, as Sean Connery said to Alec Balwin in the Tom Clancey movie The Hunt For Red October – discussing Admiral Halsey’s battle tactics – “You got it all wrong.”
Please don’t believe the ad industry’s hype. You are living on the wrong side of The Matrix. Many agency heads are my closest acquaintances. I know what we say over a scotch – Denny Crane. The 4As – The American Association of Advertising Agencies used to have a career page on their website. About 15 years ago a notice appeared on the career page. It said, “Due to the miserable economic conditions on Madison Avenue the career page, where agencies can post jobs and candidates can post resumes, has been closed. Because it is unlikely that this situation will change any time in the future The American Association of Advertising Agencies has elected not to allocate funds to maintain or upgrade this page.” And no, that’s not made up.
To Ed Dunn’s post, June 20, 2006; 8:56PM
Ed, as Sean Connery said to Alec Balwin in the Tom Clancey movie The Hunt For Red October – discussing Admiral Halsey’s battle tactics – “You got it all wrong.”
Please don’t believe the ad industry’s hype. You are living on the wrong side of The Matrix. Many agency heads are my closest acquaintances. I know what we say over a scotch – Denny Crane. The 4As – The American Association of Advertising Agencies used to have a career page on their website. About 15 years ago a notice appeared on the career page. It said, “Due to the miserable economic conditions on Madison Avenue the career page, where agencies can post jobs and candidates can post resumes, has been closed. Because it is unlikely that this situation will change any time in the future The American Association of Advertising Agencies has elected not to allocate funds to maintain or upgrade this page.” And no, that’s not made up.
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this is a great resource, just found it by accident. i have been selling ads on radio & television for years and now with interactive. yes there is a shift. a new business model needs to be done and they sit on thier duffs instead and get no results for the client. it has been my experience that the ad agencies have not had the time to even focus on new and imerging marketing opportunties. since the buyouts began, they have continued to shrink their staff(buyers, planners & a/e)to the point they do not have the time to see if a planner has the right strategy in a given market or if the budgets are realistic to the buyer. and most of all measure results. now everyone who is directly involved with getting things done, do not care. how can you? you are so slammed with work there is no possible way for anyone to take the time to train, learn, research, develop etc. when you call for an appointment no one has the time to even listen to what new and exciting products are out their. it’s a shame but it has caught up to them big time. and now companies are changing agencies, like they change their underwear. no reviews, no upfronts, etc. they should have seen it coming. this is a great site will continue to frequent.
this is a great resource, just found it by accident. i have been selling ads on radio & television for years and now with interactive. yes there is a shift. a new business model needs to be done and they sit on thier duffs instead and get no results for the client. it has been my experience that the ad agencies have not had the time to even focus on new and imerging marketing opportunties. since the buyouts began, they have continued to shrink their staff(buyers, planners & a/e)to the point they do not have the time to see if a planner has the right strategy in a given market or if the budgets are realistic to the buyer. and most of all measure results. now everyone who is directly involved with getting things done, do not care. how can you? you are so slammed with work there is no possible way for anyone to take the time to train, learn, research, develop etc. when you call for an appointment no one has the time to even listen to what new and exciting products are out their. it’s a shame but it has caught up to them big time. and now companies are changing agencies, like they change their underwear. no reviews, no upfronts, etc. they should have seen it coming. this is a great site will continue to frequent.
Wow sounds like a bunch of haters. Having been a rock star at one point an number 1 on MTV I can tell you I have heard ALLOT of singers pitching their warez. But 99 percent of them we horrible. So I guess I could see where the anti SEO statements come from. Here is the plain and simple facts. Flash does indeed kill a website as far as google is concerned even though they claim to be able to parse it. SEO is far more than just putting words on pages. It is building a network of sites that link to you as well. And that is not easy because you can not buy the links unless you want to be dropped from the engine. If 2 things are right you will prosper. Traffic and conversion, and that is where the ad agency still plays a vital role.
Wow sounds like a bunch of haters. Having been a rock star at one point an number 1 on MTV I can tell you I have heard ALLOT of singers pitching their warez. But 99 percent of them we horrible. So I guess I could see where the anti SEO statements come from. Here is the plain and simple facts. Flash does indeed kill a website as far as google is concerned even though they claim to be able to parse it. SEO is far more than just putting words on pages. It is building a network of sites that link to you as well. And that is not easy because you can not buy the links unless you want to be dropped from the engine. If 2 things are right you will prosper. Traffic and conversion, and that is where the ad agency still plays a vital role.
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