Ad Agency Google Launches TV Advertising metrics
January 28, 2010
This might be the end of “Is Google an Ad Agency” … the answer of course is yes, the problem is convincing people that work in the industry that the largest ad agency is even an advertising agency in the first place. Reading the official Google TV advertising Blog there is a post titled “Learn how to make a TV commercial in 5 easy steps” … well there you have it people. These are self made ads for small businesses, but that’s not the point. It’s that combined with Google Analytics, Google Ad Planner, Google Adwords, Google voice (where you can measure ROI on the calls) and every other tidbit surrounding their services designed to make your industry redundant.
Google’s mission is to completely marginalise your business. They want your agency to be creatives, and that’s it. They feel that the media planners are obsolete, the metrics and measurement division are obsolete, they feel that WPP group should have about 50 employees total as most of the positions there can be done via their products for a much lower cost than what you charge them.
5 years ago Google offered adwords… now they offer every single thing you do other than creative… which is designed not for you to do.. but the marketing department of the client.
Don’t you see a pattern? It would be common in your industry not to see a pattern.. it lends to situations like this that eventually lead to this but what do I know. Google’s not an ad agency, and advertising is in no threat from a search engine.. .right?
Carat Ad Agency Partner in Liquidation
January 27, 2010
The firm entered an arrangement with the ad agency Carat /Aegis, but the relationship appears to have soured, and now about $4 million may be caught up in the voluntary liquidation of the media buying advertising agency The Media Counsel. the New Zealand Herald is reporting.
This is a rough time for advertising agencies, and in particular Carat appears to be attracting some pretty negative stuff. From stealing Facebook Id’s to watching their partners (or former partners) go into bankruptcy and liquidation.
It’s a rough time to be in Advertising… you know that right?
$650 million invested - 35 people sign up for newsday.com
January 26, 2010
Murdoch did you take notice? What did you people think would happen? The Observer is reporting the story of a lifetime to old media and newspapers.
Three months later after putting the newsday.com domain behind a pay firewall, how many people do you think signed up to pay $5 a week, or $260 a year, to get unfettered access to all that unique , original content on newsday.com?
The answer:
35 people
And a few of them work there or had relatives that work there from what we were told.
So what’s the problem? Why can’t you get people to pay for rehashed 3 day old content that was covered by 1.5 million bloggers 72 hours ago?
Let’s face it, you can’t charge people for news… more news comes out of a twitter feed than comes out of media like that… no one is going to pay for it. Yet Advertising Agencies dump billions every year of their clients money into this, yet ignore the stuff that would actually generate a positive ROI for their client… like search and social media.
I would think this is the most comical story on earth, if it wasn’t so serious. No one is going to pay to subscribe to a newspaper like that online… well… not “no one” of course 35 people did… and literally from what we understand it was a few aunts and uncles of employees in that mix.
Go ahead ad agencies, keep putting your client money into advertising on that turd… it’s a great way to boost you and your client’s profits…
Newsday executives going into work
The web site redesign and relaunch cost the Dolans $4 million, according to Mr. Jimenez. With those 35 people, they’ve grossed about $9,000.
Search use increased 46 percent 2008 to 2009
January 24, 2010
No wonder Advertising Agencies are FINALLY taking notice, search has shot up nearly 50% in one year. From 2008 to 2009, search engine use has increased nearly 50% according to the report on PC world
In 2009 there were 4 billion searches per day, 175 million per hour, and 29 million per minute.
That’s a bunch of searching going on, so the question is where is your client ranked? All these people were looking for something. Some of them looking for reviews on the new car they want to buy, others were looking for reviews on a new cell phone or cell phone carrier. Others were looking for old friends from years ago, still others were looking for what’s the best college to attend.
The point is people were searching for everything.
All 29 million searches per minute. We knew this was going to happen, and it’s going to get bigger and bigger for quite some time. Search has become the definition of marketing and advertising… again to the tune of 29 million searches per minute.
I know you ad agency folks hate this… and I don’t blame you. But out of every single thing that showed up on your doorstep over the past decade.. this one is the one you shouldn’t have ignored.
Carat and Facebook surrender to Tech Crunch and Tribble
January 23, 2010
Evidently Harman’s name is back to it’s rightful owner! That’s right people, on the earlier reported today story about ad agency Carat stealing Harman’s facebook id, it appears that Carat relented under media pressure and the facebook.com/harman domain now goes to it’s proper owner, Harman Bajwa.
That doesn’t excuse the fact that ad agency Carat went to great lengths to steal his Facebook id after not settling for a free diet coke (WTF?)
This is a prime example on why you have to be careful when selecting an advertising agency, many of these ad agencies don’t understand the mechanics of social media and do more damage to a client than help.
In this case Carat ruined the name of Harman international to the point where Google News, Twitter and many other media outlets were calling them a big bully. That wasn’t helpful Carat.. not at all.
Harman International, I would strongly urge you guys on the next review to look at someone else.
Ad Agency Carat steals Man’s Facebook ID for client
January 23, 2010
This is bad, really bad. The man’s name in question is “Harman Bajwa” — Remember his name is literally Harman.
He was happy with his facebook URL, http://facebook.com/harman … until one day Ad Agency Carat sends this e-mail to him:
From: Tyler Bahl
To: Harman Bajwa
Sent: Fri, January 22, 2010 11:25:21 AM
Subject: HarmanHi Harman,
Thanks for accepting my friend request on Facebook.
I’m the emerging media strategist at Carat in Boston and I work on the Harman International account. We’re launching our first initiative in partnership with the GRAMMYS on Monday. Harman International is looking to obtain the vanity url facebook.com/harman for their Facebook fan page.
We are currently working with Facebook to reclaim (http://www.facebook.com/help/?page=896#/help.php?page=899) the username, but I wanted to explore opportunities to work with you to acquire the name. In the past, we have offered product in exchange for social domain names. One case in mind was for the new movie Avatar , we were able to give promotional items to the owner of twitter.com/avtr for Coke Zero.
Do you have time to connect today to discuss this opportunity in more detail?
Best,
-tb
Of course Harman said no. That’s his name, he’s not giving it up. He’s not giving up his name for a Diet Coke … It’s his freaking name! Then Ad Agency Carat contacts Facebook, next thing you know, Harman get’s this e-mail from Facebook.
Please Read This!
WarningThe username you selected was removed for violating Facebook’s policies. A Facebook username should have a clear connection to one’s identity. In addition, impersonating anyone or anything is prohibited. If you see other people with usernames that do not accurately represent their real names, it is only because they have not yet been removed for misuse.
To select a new username, please visit the following link:
www.facebook.com/username
Thanks for your understanding,
The Facebook Team
Huh? So Harman is violating Facebooks terms for using Harman as his Facebook ID? That’s hot. We completely hope that Carat’s Harman campaign fails. This is just wrong on so many levels. Great Advertising Campaign Carat … you guys are freaking amazing… the lack of social media skills coming from your agency never ceases to amaze us.
And Harman International spent money with your ad agency for social media? Carat should be paying them in damages to their name.
Complete Garbage.. I don’t know how you guys are in business…. seriously you completely lack in social media understanding… stealing someone’s name right off the bat isn’t the right way to go for it.. and bribing him with a Diet Coke isn’t the right way to go about it. In fact so far your entire social media campaign isn’t right.
You guys should just do print or something… disconnect the internet to your location.. clearly you don’t know how to use it. Thank you TechCrunch for finding this.
EDIT: After some extreme use of social media, it appears that Carat and Facebook have relented
Mahatma Gandhi : Ad Agencies have come a long way
January 22, 2010
We’re going to start off this article with a well known quote:
“First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win.” — Mahatma Gandhi
Then we’re going to follow the timeline:
“First they ignore you”
There are no mentions of “Search Engine Optimization” in Advertising Age Magazine in the whole 20th century.. all through the .com boom to .com crash of the 1990′s… not one single mention of SEO even though the industry was growing at an extremely rapid pace.
“then they ridicule you,”
“Every good techie knows that SEO personnel are just blowhards who couldn’t hack it in any real vocation. Calling their product snake oil really isn’t fair to snake oil manufacturers, as I believe snake oil is effective at oiling snakes.” Comment on Adrants July 20, 2006
then they fight you
I haven’t seen much evidence that digital agencies are ready to lead brands where they need to go, anymore than I’ve seen traditional agencies capable of leading their brands for at least the last 10 years. Sure, the digital shops get the technology, but the smarter ones will tell you that it’s not about the technology. Comment on Adage November 12, 2009
Then you win
WPP group bids for Icrossing - 1/01/2010
Yooter InterActive welcomes AOL as a client - January 2010
This list goes on forever.. especially in the last 3 months there has been an extreme uptick in SEO and Social Marketing Inquiries and new business. This is a dramatic change from above.
“First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win.” — Mahatma Gandhi
You were right Gandhi … you were so right.
How Advertising and Media change history
January 20, 2010
You know, some things just bug me. Advertising and media overall do some things that really modify history. In this example, we are going to take one of the biggest events from human history, the first photo of Earth Rise from behind the moon. the ones you saw in the History books, online, on millions of TV commercials? All THREE of the below photos were taken on December 24th, 1968 on the same mission within minutes of each other. Please make sure to view all three images.
You know this one, this is the image you are used to seeing right?
I hate to break it to you guys, but it wasn’t the first… in fact.. there are all sorts of things wrong with this image above. Namely somewhere along the lines someone thought that it needed to be rotated for public consumption in effect modifying history, implying that the orbit of the ship around the moon was going in a completely “sideways” manner to how it actually happened.
This is the source of the SECOND photo taken of Earth Rise that we normally pawn off as the first.
It’s basically the initial image but rotated …. we had to rotate it… we couldn’t leave it alone.
Notice the position of the Earth , and it’s distance from the Moon’s horizon. This is important for the last image.
The problem that advertisers have with this photo is that it’s sideways, the Earth isn’t “rising” coming “around” the moon.
The image directly above however is generally the one that is manipulated to show the Earth rising above the moon in the traditional sense of how we are accustomed to seeing the moon or the sun rise in the morning or night.. in other words rising, not around the bend. In other words, they took the image above to show you the “standard earth rise image”.
You want the shocker? You want the real first image? You want the one that we advertisers and media have been “hiding” from the public?
As noted earlier, we needed you to see the distance between the moon and the earth, clearly it’s “rising” so the earlier the photo, the closer it is to the moon right? By our estimates there are at least several minutes between the above and below photos.
That’s the image below people. That is the very first photograph ever taken of Earth Rise.
Oh noes! It’s “sideways” and in Black and White!! We can’t say that’s the truth.
But alas, we advertisers need color. We can’t tell the truth for the truth of it. We need to change the orientation of the earth and the moon, use the second photo calling it the first… and then low and behold we create our own history.
Then honestly what is the truth. Really think about it, we changed history for one of the most important events in human history… we go out and lie on ads stating that the first image is the truth, when in fact it isn’t the first… and to make matters worse, due to the orientation changes.. it’s not even the second.
Shameful, really when you think about it. Because if us advertisers make little changes like this regarding history across every industry, every single thing we touch. And if you don’t believe me, this was verified by NASA.
Define Digital Advertising for 2010
January 18, 2010
January last year, we ran a story called Define Digital Advertising for 2009. This year, we titled it Define Digital Advertising for 2010, but the title is misleading. Due to the complete disregard of advertising agencies in using proper definitions. We will have to term it differently this year.
In the article published last year we noted that agencies will continue mislabel “digital advertising” and market forces will continue to push away from their definition. This proved to be 100% accurate.
“What they call digital is Flash and Photoshop, what the client is asking for is SEO and SMO.”
This has become more and more of an issue, and though the agencies have fought this tooth and nail, the end result is some ad agencies are just losing business. The proper term for a “digital agency” would be “search social marketing agency“.
You have to understand the reason. It’s too much trouble to call them digital, when firms like WPP group plc continue to call 100% flash sites “digital advertising”. It’s misleading at best, and a downright lie at worst. Another issue is that it’s not “advertising” as per say.. it’s marketing. Advertising is making ads, using client money to plaster those ads during 30 second spots where everyone is hitting fast forward to get past them… or just sliding the video on Hulu to bypass.
Search Social Marketing is having people WANT to fan your client on Facebook and actively follow their Twitter feed and actively search for your products online.
One of the bigger debates that started in 2009 is if a digital agency could take the lead. Well that is a refreshing change.
Circa 1995 to 2005 - Viewed as TV camera men in terms of overall impact.. with a website being the TV
Circa 2006-2009 - What is going on, these ad agencies are not even agencies, how are they landing these accounts?
Circa 2010-2015 - We’re entertaining an offer from this digital ad agency to buy what remains of our firm, they want to buy the rest of our clients.
Honestly that is what’s happening out there… most advertising agencies are somewhat caught up between two aspects. The first is the recession, and the second is a dying business model.
Low and behold, we are where we are now due to this fact. With a Search Social Marketing Agency replacing an advertising agency… I like that term… search social marketing agency… I think it needs to be trademarked.
Why WPP should NOT buy Yahoo
January 15, 2010
This is in response to the Paid Content report titled “Why Yahoo Should Buy WPP”.
The fundamental problems with this are astronomical, but let’s take things one at a time. A marriage like won’t make sense to either company for the simple fact is what would advertising agency WPP group plc do with Yahoo?
WPP doesn’t have the technical knowledge to run an Internet portal like that, you’re talking about a holding company where more than 1/2 of their subsidiaries launch websites without meta tags. So in essence WPP would have to rely on Yahoo Engineers to keep things running and growing.
Then that leaves open a second question, does Yahoo know what it’s doing itself? It’s Market cap of $23.55 Billion is a fraction of Google that is currently at $183.84 Billion. Despite the fact that YAHOO CREATED GOOGLE. That’s correct people, almost exactly 10 years ago Yahoo adopted Google Results in their search engine, forcing their advertising loaded website to display Google Results. Within months users found out that they could see a non-ad filled page with the same results. What do you think consumers did? Yahoo ended the relationship a few years later when they came to realisation that they are growing a competitor.
So exactly what could WPP bring to the table that Yahoo! can’t do on their own? Well the problem is nothing. See most clients don’t really care about Yahoo in terms of advertising dollars. They DO care about Google. So WPP owning Yahoo and then all of a sudden pushing their clients to spend their pay per click dollars and display ads on Yahoo as compared to Google Adwords will look far more than just dishonest… it will most likely destroy their clients ROI.
“We’re going to allocate 85% of your budget to Yahoo display ads” — WPP
“Huh?” — Client
Perhaps I was wrong, WPP should buy Yahoo. For a firm like mine it would mean even more clients.
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