Sun 1 Oct 2006
Martin Calle : If a picture is worth a thousand words, would you hire this ad agency?
Posted by TheFounder under Ad AgenciesMartin Calle I have to admit hit the nail right on the head. Ad Agencies are facing multiple threats… one of them in our opinion is them lacking in overall internet marketing, especially search engine optimization.
These guys sometimes feel that the message must be delivered, regardless if no one can even hear the message because the website is not designed to rank in Google, Yahoo and MSN.
Most of the Ad Agencies are not even taking advantage of Google Video, or YouTube, or normal Google, Yahoo and MSN results. They stick to this all flash website that they billed their client 200k to build, only to have no visitors because it’s.. you got it.. all in flash.
These Ad Agencies are dinosaurs of epic proportions and are losing revenue to SEO (and a lesser extent) SEM firms.
See these Ad Agencies already have relationships with these companies, so why are those same companies contracting with SEO firms, in essance to boss around the Ad Agency on how to build their websites.
Good Article…
October 3rd, 2006 at 9:47 am
…And back to you. Many of the traditional advertising agencies console themselves by fostering relationships with SEO and SEMs or building one in-house themselves. They also facilitate the shift of media dollars from traditional media to new media such as SEOs and SEMs…and that trend is growing in their never ending quest for consumer ears and eyeballs.
My intent is not to defend big agencies. I always want to circle back to the point that my goal is to help them create effective campaigns. What does this mean? Well, have you ever heard the saying, “garbage in, garbage out,” or, “you reap what you sow?”
It is the client’s responsibility to provide strategic guidance to an advertising agency via a document such as a positioning statement. This is what the “suits” in account management do. It is the creative’s responsibility to turn that into a creative strategy.
However, as long as manufacturers [client] scratch this surface no more deeply that product features, functions and consumer benefits advertising will tend toward blandness, sameness and commoditization.
We have historically enabled clients to delve beneath that surface to determine what consumers really want heard, and want next, before they are able to articulate it. We look at the world through a proprietary “abstract lens” that lets us see that a stew in a can is really a “soup you eat with a fork;” that people don’t want low fat Wow! Chips with Olestra, but they do want a combination of high health and high pleasure found in Baked Lays (which spanked Wow!)and that people don’t want to hear more about the flavor and aroma superiority of good to the last drop versus mountain grown. They want to hear about caffiene adds control to your morning. Yes, “the best part of waking up is caffiene [Folgers] in your cup.” I discovered the insight and wrote the copy. Consequently, those things we touch turn to gold while others still await to learn these things again for the first time.
No, I am not Lording it over everyone else. It is just that there is an important dialogue going on beyond product features, functions and benefits. But that is all that clients provide to advertising agencies. Consequently, those on each side of the fence find themselves typically ten to fifteen years behind the consumer curve. It’s a shame, but more at fault is the fact that clients will not fund the original research required to discern new directions - too wrapped up in the notion that they are unable to distinguish one provider of such information from another.
October 3rd, 2006 at 10:44 am
By the way, thanks for picking up my post on “Wood’s Gone Wild: Tiger Woods and Your Dad’s Old Car.”
http://advertising-age.blogspot.com/2006/09/woods-gone-wild-tiger-woods-your-dads.html
I think The Tribble Agency is a terrific place! And that business description, “We look cute, but boy do we consume resources” is phenomenal!
Hat’s off!