BlockBuster to file for Bankruptcy
August 27, 2010
Report: Blockbuster bankruptcy is imminent
Blockbuster Inc. plans to file for a pre-packaged bankruptcy in September. The Bankruptcy will most likely include a massive restructuring of the company including firing of the thousands of employees there and some say the company will completely convert to a “redbox / netflix ” hybrid with kiosks, mail order and streaming being their only channels.
The bankruptcy will allow them to get out of virtually all leases for their locations and allow them a “painless way” to fire all the employees.
The company has been on it’s deathbed for roughly half a decade or longer. So this doesn’t come as a surprise to many individuals. The company wiped out the advertising agency budget back in 2007
By 2009 the headlines on Tribble were stating “this company needs to fold”
By early 2010 we were stating that “blockbuster” was too big to fail. (yes we were making fun of both the company and the bailouts.)
We think it’s game over.
fix the sign dunkin
August 22, 2010
Dear dunkin,
I love the sign even though I have no clue what the sign says.
This is poor advertising as it shows that the quality of your product is similar to the product of your sign.
This isn’t even remotely fair as honestly dunkin coffee is perhaps the best. Beating “crapbucks” by a 5:1 margin.
So please Mr. Dunkin, invest alittle in your sign, it reflects the quality of your product.
Signed,
Your fans
40,800,000 Americans on Food Stamps
August 5, 2010
40,800,000 Americans on Food Stamps. The number roughly corresponds with the entire population of the following states and the nations capital:
Wyoming
Washington DC
Vermont
North Dakota
Alaska
South Dakota
Delaware
Montana
Rhode Island
Hawaii
Maine
New Hampshire
Idaho
Nebraska
West Virginia
New Mexico
Nevada
Utah
Kansas
Arkansas
Mississippi
Iowa
Connecticut
Oklahoma
Everyone in those states theoretically is on food stamps. That’s the new reality people. We have literally 1/2 the nation on food stamps in terms of number of states.
Let that settle in. 1/2 the number of states in the entire country, if you add their population up roughly equals the number of people on food stamps. I don’t see how an ad agency can advertise to people with no money.
This is a massive problem, it’s something that has been unheard of in recent times, only mirrored by the great depression in terms of severity. So go ahead and continue to feel that things are getting better, when in reality things are getting worse, much worse.
I fully expect a severe double dip recession unless someone comes up with a big bubble. Until that time there continues to be less need for work as less and less people are making ends meet and have any disposable income to use to purchase services and goods.
Truly, enjoy the new reality.
Advertising Recession – More Ad Agencies reporting slowdown
July 19, 2010
IN the past 3 months some advertising agencies have been reporting a decrease in spends, and client wins are becoming smaller (on average).
It appears that based on these reports alone many are bracing for a double dip recession.
“Billables though the same client are down at least 25%” one agency executive stated.
Another agency in a differing part of the country stated “I don’t understand why many of our clients are opting for the smaller spends rather than the bigger campaigns, they all have a sense of fear that things are going to get worse, not better”
Generally speaking when business sediment is that things are going to get worse, the businesses spend less on advertising. It appears that the reports we are seeing, ad agencies are seeing smaller client spends in the first and second quarter of 2010.
This is going to get ugly people.
33 year old Advertising Agency shuts doors – out of money
July 6, 2010
One of the oldest advertising agencies in Indianapolis, Pearson Partners Inc., is closing after 33 years in business. The business journal is reporting.
This is hard economic times for most companies, but the chances are we are going into a double dip recession, where advertising agencies are a dime a dozen, and most clients don’t even have a dime to spend.
Remember Advertising isn’t a core business as most management views it, it’s discretionary spending. If it comes to payroll or advertising, most C-level individuals would choose payroll. Hence the problem.
The chances are very high that this isn’t going to be the last established advertising agency to shut their doors, in fact if you were to bet I would say that business failures will only increase over the next 3 years as compared to decrease.
Pearson said in his e-mail that a “skeleton crew” of three will stay on for another week or two to finalize details and to pay creditors what it can.
“We do not anticipate, unfortunately, that enough accounts receivable will come in to pay everything,” he said.
Add to the list of people that will be shafted those people that this agency owed money to.
This is terrible, welcome to the new reality.
Post an Article to Tribble Ad Agency
June 23, 2010
Well we have been thinking about it. Users can now post full articles on Tribble Ad Agency! It is syndicated in Google News, Twitter and Facebook, as well as Google Blog Search, and a whole host of media sites.
We believe in open source, and that means content as well. So go ahead and give it a shot. Have something to say about advertising? It’s direction, what’s happening in the world, breaking news events? Go ahead and submit your story! This is a breaking news update as we just placed the technology in to have this done.
Already thrown around are uses such as submitting your resume so people can view it. Other ideas are on how the administration or BP is taking care of the oil volcano. Just publish what you want.
To comply with Google News requirements, all posts must be moderated and approved.
Just follow these steps!
1 Create an Account Here
2 When your account is created, login to post your article and submit it.
3 When you submit your article, it will be reviewed in 24 hours (if not sooner) and published as a main article.
Generally speaking main articles do show up in Google News and other locations. So use proper spelling and double check what you are submitting.
Have fun…. Enjoy!
Detroit Recruiter : Picking on Detroit is a cheap shot
May 6, 2010
As promised, if someone sends in a well thought out rebuttal, we will post it. Below is a complete cut and paste of the e-mail.
Usually I just take your rants in stride but today; not so much. Picking on Detroit is at best, a cheap shot and at worst, unconscionable to those of us still here trying to go about our lives. We can’t do it if we have to constantly explain what is and isn’t true about metro-Detroit.
You’re a smart man. You have to be smart enough to realize that Detroit is not the whole region and Detroit is not some bomb-filled hell. We got hit hard and we got hit first. You are starting to see the same things happening throughout the U.S. You will continue to see it until the agencies start hiring again. Oh, snap, they are hiring here in Detroit!
McCann Erickson just hired 50 people in the past couple of months. Team Detroit is about to hire about the same. GlobalHue is about to do the same. What do these agencies have in common? THEY ARE ALL IN METRO-DETROIT! It should also be noted that none of these agencies are actually located in the city of Detroit.
I recruit for agencies throughout the U.S. so I know that there are plenty of other places that are struggling. Oddly enough, we’re picking up like crazy around here this year. Before the rest of the country.
Why don’t you actually come here and see for yourself? If you have the guts to come near the bombed out city, I will actually show you the sights. If I had a nickel for every candidate who said “I had no idea how nice it was”, I could retire tomorrow.
Something went terribly wrong all right: the U.S. stopped making things. I think we all saw what happened when the financial sector imploded last year. Would you call New York an area in decline?
Rant complete.
A Detroit Recruiter
Internet Traffic normally declines during summer months
April 8, 2010
It’s worth noting that since the mid-1990′s internet traffic has generally trended down during the summer. For many of us online marketers, search and social marketing types it’s frustrating.
It’s that time of year when people are outside in the nice weather, in some instances people report a decrease in traffic that does hit double digits when compared to a similar length month in the winter.
The advice is simple, you keep doing what you are doing and traffic will pick up in the winter.
Now of course there are exceptions to the rule, if your website is about summer travel to some beach, then of course your traffic will increase. But that’s the exception, not the rule.
Overall what you need to do during the summer is refine your marketing program, allocate more resources to the areas that are paying off. I generally advise my clients to decrease their PPC spend during the summer by a corresponding amount, depending on their business model (in some more rare cases it is better to increase during that time).
I would also take the time during the summer months to take a complete overview of what you are doing, and how you are doing it. If you were planning on switching your digital ad agency, I would do it during the summer as generally it’s a slower time of the year.. and the new agency needs some time to ramp up.
Any questions, just ask.
The next bubble…
March 29, 2010
Whilst perusing my IM contacts today… the Founder has this as his IM status at the moment…
“Looking for the next bubble”
So I IM’d him and let him know the next bubble is already upon us… the vaunted “social media” craze that currently exists (to which is readily agreed.)
My theory is built around a few undeniable facts:
1) There are shitloads of wankers, liars and bullshit artists selling themselves as “social media experts” – DANGER DANGER WILL ROBINSON!
If this is not a warning sign to all…perhaps you should recheck your prescription (optical and/or medicinal) because to become an expert should take the sane person all of a couple of hours to come up with the basics of what their potential company should be doing and why.
Most of the charlatans out there will tell you that you need to invest in a variety of platforms and this should be “organic growth” (or some other bullshit phrase or terminology that is the current word de jour.)
In the immortal words of my good friend Chuck D. of Public Enemy — “Don’t believe the hype”
Social media is just a very small sub-sect of something somewhat commonly referred to as “customer engagement” – and it is vastly more complicated than just being on Facebook, Twitter or another SN wankfest. (Most of that you can get accomplished in under a couple of hours — and with FB they offer all the analytics you need to make a ROI justification so you can do it as a self-service job if you have half a brain.)
If you have real customer engagement — well you have something both valuable & tangible — but trying to justify developing social media strategies as the lone component in the equation is like saying because you can throw a paper airplane, you should be able to guide that A-380 with 500+ passengers on-board to Tokyo next week with no problem.
I know people I have both hired & worked with a lot of people who market/sell themselves them as a “SN expert” these days…and even if they are great people and may be a excellent person to grab a beer and have a chat about the local sports team — they don’t really know shit about the anything about the scope beyond their own small world viewpoint — a world that I could teach you out of an online tutorial in under an hour.
To ask them to actually understand the needs of a multi-national corporation and the requirements that the people in the senior roles within these companies face on a daily basis — well let’s just say you are playing in the very shallow end of the business gene pool when it comes down to brass tacks.
It is the same problem that vexes the agency world these days — a lot of tosspots who know fuck all about nothing trying to sell something to clients that they apparently desperately need (if you are listening to the drivel of the tosspots that is.)
Now I can see why it is like this of course — several current digital agencies pray on their unknowing clients this way — jack them up for huge fees and inflate incredibly complex and lengthy timelines or something that if the client knew how easy it all actually was — well let’s say that the agency and client would soon be parting ways with a flurry of lawsuits soon to follow.
2) For the most part, SN destinations are built on the premise that one day they’ll make money and it is great to get in on the ground floor while the opportunity is there…
This is the Bernie Madoff scheme way of thinking… i.e. there are several large monuments to this type of theory if you happen to visit Egypt…
When is Twitter going to start making $$$ exactly? If you read the reports of Biz Stone’s unveiling of the “@anywhere” platform at SWSX a couple of weeks ago (an aside –what the fuck is that actually supposed to mean?) — well to be kind it vacillated between “floating like a lead balloon” to “re-arranging deck chairs on the Titanic” — which is something like one apparently feels when Martin Sorrell speaks on any subject too…
As the Founder has mentioned here a few times before on various stories that have crossed the wires over the past few months — there are shitloads of small start-ups who rely on platforms like Twitter to build out their platform — which is like building a business on false hope if nothing else.
My current favorite is Four Square (4sq.com for the hipsters here) — or as I have dubbed it “Let me rob you of your valuable possessions while you are out making a scene somewhere…” sure “location-based services” (another phrase du jour) will someday be important….but at the moment, there is no business model that supports the bloody thing — other than making you seem like a self-important douchebag for being the “mayor” of your living room or getting a badge like you are some super-efficient boy scout…
I will go further about this (as there are several additional points one could add to validate the argument) but I’m sure you have all resorted to giving me the international “hand job” hand motion (if you have made it this far) and written me off as a cranky bastard while cueing up my “wrap it up” awards ceremony music…so I’m off to develop something sustainable for my clients… check you later…
(and I’ll try and not make it a month-plus before my next post — but can you blame me — there is only so much shit you can stand to shovel and the agency world produces way too much in proportion to its actual impact on society)
Update:
In a delicious bit of both irony & hypocrisy (and what would the ad world be without massive heaps of both) — you can sign up for my twitter ramblings (lots of swearing and bashing ensue) here:
http://twitter.com/ondownlow
Starting your own advertising agency in 2010
March 25, 2010
In 2008, we published a “starting your own advertising agency” post, we figured we would update this to how much things have changed in 2010 … amazing what 600 days could do.
this is the complete post from 2008, under each paragraph is the update:
There are really 2 ways to start an ad agency (or any company for that matter). The first is to convince Michael Dell to fork over 4.5 billion dollars and build one from scratch. The second, is to look at what you have in your bank account and what you can muster yourself and go on your own. With the thousands of people that have already been fired / laid off .. the first option isn’t really an option. So I am going to outline how to setup a legitimate business under $2,000 $1000 dollars startup and under $500 $275 a month…. everything included… minus the income (you are going to have to earn that with your clients that you will get). Virtually all of the steps that you will see outlined below is ROUGHLY the route I took when I started my firm.
2010 UPDATE: We all saw how starting the 4.5 billion dollar approach works, in short it doesn’t as Enfatico is shut down. Also in the new 2010 version, we going to even cut MORE costs from both the startup and monthly, in other words technology is going to make it even less expensive to start your own firm, by a considerable amount.
Please note that the way this is written, you need to cover just under $500 $275 dollars a month in expenses just for overhead (not your salary.. just things like phone and rent).. The funny thing worth noting… this part is the easy part.. the hard part comes when you complete all the steps in this process… and you are open for business…
This document will outline some of the steps you will need to go forward with. This isn’t of course “all inclusive” but it should be one hell of a start.
1 – Find your natural strength – it will be a benefit that companies need that other agencies cannot provide or don’t provide. You need to be a NEEDED difference in this recession / great depression part II.
This has not changed at all, you still need to be able to have a skillset that others cannot provide.
2 – Business Plan – Write down what your firm will be doing, how it will grow, how you will pay your bills, how you will get your clients, if you need help with this the SBA.GOV site is an excellent place to start. I don’t suggest having someone write it for you. The reason is if you are not skilled enough to figure out how to read and write a business plan for your own business… then you really have no business running a business. The directions are clear as day… just use common sense, the SBA.GOV site and Google examples and concepts.
This has not changed as well, you need direction and as much advice as possible.
3 – Accounting – SAVE EVERY RECEIPT … every penny that goes out and goes in must be accounted for.. otherwise you’ll be paying taxes on money you never earned… because you didn’t record the expense associated with getting that income. If you choose the Linux route.. you’ll notice about 300 programs there for accounting … all for free…. choose one that makes sense.
Again, this hasn’t changed
4 – File company structure / get bank account / ways to collect money — In my opinion you are a complete idiot if you start a business as a sole proprietorship.. if something goes wrong… someone sues you for anything… they can take your house.. your car.. everything you own or will own… maybe your first born… file some sort of protection for yourself. You might want to consult with a lawyer on this… or do it yourself if you know what you are doing… there are tons of online services that do this.. I myself am not a lawyer.. but examples are LLC structures, Sub Chapter S Corporations.. you need some sort of company structure .. and not just your name out there as a sole proprietorship that screams “please sue me and take my house” …. use Google for the research or call your lawyer.. don’t .. I repeat DO NOT go to step 4 before taking care of this first. It’s imperative that you do this first. The initial costs for this are minimal. I have budgeted $300 dollars for step… it might be more or less depending on your State and if you do it yourself or have a lawyer do it. Please do your homework on the company structure.. there are huge differences in taxation and liability surrounding this. Also worth noting, about now is when your company needs it’s own checking account… shop around for a bank that you trust … also some of your clients may want to pay online rather than via check… considering the stage in life you are in… we suggest paypal… you’ll want to revisit this later in life when you grow.. but for now it’s your lowest cost entrance to collecting funds online via credit card. Sign your bank account and paypal account under your new LLC / whatever company structure you choose name. You are no longer John Doe… you are “whatever company, LLC” moving forward.
This hasn’t changed either
5 – Pick a location, you need to report to work.. even if it’s just yourself. Some people disagree and say working from home is fine. I STRONGLY disagree… companies won’t take you seriously if you meet and greet them in your kitchen… Show some effort and risk on your part.. Contact your local Realtor or search online (even the local classifieds) to see what offices are up for occupancy. In a mid-sized city of about 100,000 – 300,000 people… and due to the current economy.. you should be able to find a clean, safe 1 room office in the neighborhood of a few hundred dollars a month where low cost High Speed Internet is available for your… in 2005 (in the middle of the housing boom) I found a clean single office location in a good part of town (Philadelphia Metro Area) for under $300/month… last I heard that office is going for $200… It wasn’t the Taj Mahal but it was clean and respectable for clients to come in and see. Some of my very first clients I met there… Sign your lease under your new LLC / whatever company structure you choose name. You are no longer John Doe… you are “whatever company, LLC” moving forward.
This HAS changed, due to how deep this recession has become, the chances are that you will find rent at 30% lower than you would be able to back in 2008. That 300/month single office rent is now most likely hovering around $200
6 – Bandwidth – You cannot run a modern office without a high speed internet connection… in fact based on this plan.. your phones won’t even work without it. We suggest high speed Cable… the bandwidth peaks at about 20 Mbps… plenty fast for a small (or even mid sized office).. the plans start off at about $80/month… (again depending on your location and service provider). DSL is much slower when you factor in step 6. Again, Sign your bandwidth agreement under your new LLC / whatever company structure you choose name. You are no longer John Doe… you are “whatever company, LLC” moving forward.
This HAS changed as well, bandwidth is slightly cheaper than before, shop around but most likely you will see about a 10% discount on average.
7 – Phones – I can’t stress this enough… if you grow.. their will be hell to pay if you get the wrong phone system… an IVR system will cost you thousands… Use Voice over IP.. I selected Packet8 for my services… it has everything you need (like transferring extensions)… plus as you grow and add extensions.. you are going to be much better off.. a basic phone costs about 150 dollars… and 50 bucks a month for unlimited usage (25 for metered.. as in 300 minutes a month) as of last year .. you’ll want the unlimited (more on that later).. but please shop around… I strongly suggest NOT to call your local telephone company for this… they are still on some sort of retro time warp in terms of pricing and features.. (all the bills, none of the services). I strongly suggest NOT to start off your company using your cell phone as your only number… 5 years down the line.. you’ll have 200 employees.. and you’ll still have people calling your personal cell phone. There is nothing wrong with that other than the need to separate your personal life and work… trust me on this.. your husband / wife / kid will thank you for taking this step now. Again, Sign your phone system under your new LLC / whatever company structure you choose name. You are no longer John Doe… you are “whatever company, LLC” moving forward.
This CHANGED big time, a small advertising agency doesn’t need that system anymore, it needs Google Voice. The entire phone system should and can route to any phone that you want, this allows for growing as well, if 10 years from now you have 100 employees.. just forward it to whatever phone system you want. The good news about Google voice is that it’s completely free and will work with your existing cell phone or whatever phone you choose. In fact because it’s so strongly integrated online, you can use click to talk features directly from your website.
8 – Computers – Ok… this is where it really is nonstandard for many in the work environment.. this isn’t 1985 .. and Microsoft Windows or Apple isn’t the only place you can get what you need. In fact going down the route will lead to disaster in the long run in my opinion. Get yourself a machine with enough horsepower budgeting $400 … and try to get it with Ubuntu Linux (or any Distro).. there is a valid reason for this.. really valid. Linux has been with us for a long time… but recently in the past few years.. it has made some serious inroads into the desktop environment and for good reason.. it’s easy to use, stable and 100% free… literally free.. but the OS isn’t what makes it cool.. it’s this neat “add and remove programs”…that literally goes out.. grabs new programs for you free of charge.. and installs them.. like a photo shop competitor called the gimp (saving you $1,800 dollars) or open office instead of Microsoft Office… (saving you about $500 dollars) or awesome video editing software for free (there are at least 40 differing programs like that… select whatever makes sense for you)… saving you at least $1,299.00 dollars .. as that is what Final Cut Pro costs currently. Yes there are Windows versions of many (but not all) of these programs… but the point is that Linux is geared towards this… it’s sort of running native when they run on Linux.
Total Saved by taking this route rather than a Apple or Windows Machine? At least $4,000 dollars per desktop..
This has not changed 1 inch, in fact Linux distros have grown dramatically in ease of use.
9 – Office Furniture – This is where you need to really think about it… head to store that sells simple and low cost office furniture … and use that for now. You’re talking 100 bucks for your desk.. 100 bucks for your chair… another 50 bucks for a small filing cabinet and some cubbies to put your stuff in. Remember you are starting out… this is an area that you can save some money (within reason.. don’t buy something that will break on you in a week… and make sure you buy a chair that has proper support.. you’ll thank me for that later as well).
This hasn’t changed
10 – Your initial marketing budget. This is perhaps the most interesting part.. see … the reason I wanted you to get that phone with unlimited calling…. was because that IS part of your marketing budget… you better be announcing yourself to everyone that you view as a potential client… also.. you need a website… .. you really need a website… a domain name can be purchased for as little as 8 bucks year.. and 5 bucks a month for hosting… this is a MUST have… the total cost is 68 bucks for your first year… .. it could be as simple as a wordpress.org blog …. You of course need a website and e-mail address to go on your business cards… that I budgeted $100 bucks for your business cards… you need something professional to hand out to people… on good paper… and done right.. business cards are the one of the lowest cost physical forms of marketing available. Virtually all webhosting plans come with a branded e-mail address…. marketing@example.com and sales@example.com and john.doe@example.com … you can make as many e-mail addresses as you want…. just don’t make a nightmare for yourself… design site as if you were not a tiny startup company.. but make your site look like what you WANT your firm to be 5 years from now. It will make you look more legitimate to your potential clients. There are about a million themes you can download for your wordpress website… find something that works for you.
This hasn’t changed either
11 – Unexpected things – Nothing every goes according to plan … I budgeted nearly 800 dollars in this for your personal needs — perhaps you need a killer printer — fax machine — whatever… the point is that there is money there for you (nearly 800 dollars) that could be allocated to your $100 dollar printer.. and $50 dollar fax machine or your city “employment tax of 50 bucks”.. whatever you need… and whatever we can’t plan for not knowing your business model and specific business needs. I would also consider looking into insurance for your business.. everything from renters insurance if a fire breaks out in your building to “if someone sues me” insurance… some areas require it.. some don’t… but it is suggested… I would be unsure of the fees for this… so do your homework and what you feel is right.
Total costs Monthly:
Your own Physical office location – $300/month $200/month
Voice over IP phone (unlimited) – $50/month
Google Voice = FREE
High Speed Internet Access – $80 $70
hosting – $60 (5 dollars a month * 12 months)
One Time – phone $150 FREE with Google Voice
Company structure (LLC, Inc, Etc) / $300
the total monthly cost went from about 450 now to 275 per month (mostly in rent and phone system)
the total setup costs went down from about $1,208 down to under 1000 (at about $994)
Now honestly this might or might not match your needs… this is just a guide that you may choose or not choose to follow… or take bits of it.. and put in your your own flavor and costs… but the plan above clearly gets you in an office, with a desk and chair, a phone, internet access, computer, business cards, a website, branded e-mail address and even a rudimentary marketing plan…. the only thing missing now is your source of income (new clients) and what exactly are you going to do to earn their money……. in essence.. it’s your turn to fill in the blanks.
Also new things that weren’t even open to you back in 2008, you now get a 35% discount on your health insurance due to tax credits, and eventually that ramps up to 50% by 2014, but you might want to spend some time reading up on the health care bill, what you saved in rent and phone might be able to help you to get health insurance moving forward!
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