New Year Resolution: Make Your Agency Better

6.5 Percent Unemployment, Surge In The Housing Market, Affordable Healthcare, Unicorns & Glitter

Unicorns & Glitter to the rescue!

Read on, trust me, I will get to what this means to your agency. . .

I’ve been traveling a lot lately and therefore watching a whole bunch of cable news. I go everywhere from Lean Forward to Fair and Balanced, with PBS sprinkled in.

I know first-hand that the sub-head I wrote is a whole ton of crap. Yes, even the part about Unicorns & Glitter, sadly. And the stark reality wasn't mentioned on cable news.

I live in Las Vegas, Nevada. The giant sinkhole of the Last Great Boom.

The reality is that the U-6 rate (actual unemployment including those who have quit looking) is 21.4 percent.

The reality is that the surge in the housing market is driven by, once again, speculators. That $600,000 home next door to me, that has foreclosed at least three times in five years, sold for less than $200,000 to a company that has a goal of 5,000 rental units.

The reality is . . . Affordable healthcare – the single greatest oxymoron ever. The bills get paid somehow, and whether it’s on the backs of the 20-somethings, or through higher average premiums (or taxes) for all, none of it really makes sense. Who does it make sense to? Perhaps the 12,745 individuals out of the 118,000 anticipated, who have signed up in Nevada as of the December 30 deadline.

The purpose isn’t to leave 2013 on a bad note. It is to enter 2014 on better note.

All of this ‘news’ points to one thing: get your act together.

Your agency. Your marketing department.

Stop all the waste that makes (or should make) you crazy.

• Eliminate the extraordinary overages in client hours (that you can’t bill)
• Communicate within – effectively and efficiently (get the documentation process out of email!)
• Know where every project is at any moment (and who’s working on it)

When your house is in order, you will have time to do stunning creative, attract more clients and hire amazing talent.

Be brutally honest with yourself about your agency or department, because those bullet points are the distractions that will keep you mired in 2013. 

It's such mundane stuff I'm amazed I have to point it out. But then again, you're probably so used to it, you just assume it's part of being in advertising. 

I’m not here to tell you how to do great creative. I’m here to tell you how to organize so you can.

So, by getting organized, you can affect change: reduce the U-6 rate: hire people so they can buy a house; and when you're more profitable, you can offer better healthcare than what's offered on the public exchange - another great way to attract top talent.

As for Nevada? A prosperous 2014. We get drones!

Something To Believe In

It’s a 1971 Buick Riviera, folks.

A mossy, rootbeer-colored version of this internal combustion behemoth sat in my driveway for months while I waited for my ex to tow it away.

The only way I could believe in it was to see it gone. Really gone. Out of my driveway.

As I have been in advertising a while, I find it interesting to check out ads from the past. So, thinking longingly of shit that truly annoyed me to no end, I thought of the Buick Riviera.

The headline makes me wince. What knucklehead thought that a 1971 Buick Rivera was something to believe in? If we believed in it, would we be granted solitude at that lovely lakeside retreat?

That unsuspecting young woman dreaming of prosperity would, in less than 24 months, regret owning that 2+ ton, 455 cubic-inch, 250-horsepower beast with, oh, an average MPG of maybe . . . 8.

I worked in the automotive industry in the early ‘70’s. Yes I had a ‘career’ before advertising.

I worked for a division of Ford Motor Company that performed Predelivery Service. You know, clean up the car, install the hubcaps and send it on all shiny and new to the dealer.

We called it Final Assembly.

Sometimes parts were missing. Essential parts. So we installed them too.

I had been laid off three times during the Oil Crisis, when I finally woke-up and decided to put my certificate in Commercial Art to good use.

I joined a marketing department at a high-tech firm.

Something I could believe in.

1979 and we were in the midst of an economic shit-storm.

The high-tech company I worked for had government contracts. If you weren’t alive then, I’ll fill you in: wage freezes. Any company that had a government contract froze wages.

At least I had a job. Something I could believe in.

35 years later, dozens of hires and layoffs later I have to wonder: what’s changed?

Not much.

Appreciate the good times when you’re living in the midst of them – because they can change suddenly.

Be prepared.

That’s something I can believe in.

You're Just Not That Important

After you win your Dream Client and make a whole bunch of money, buy your team a 24k MacBook complete with diamond logo.

We all need clients to pay us for doing work. We all want good clients who appreciate us. So, as I read this little gem in AdAge, it gave me pause for thought.

I have worked on both sides – agency and client – and something is terribly wrong on both sides.

I’ve been on the client side:

Clients are jerks, they hold the purse strings, demand more faster, then ask you to cut the budget while they art direct the creative into a P.O.S., and run over the budget (of which you probably planned to give them more anyway).

Clients are disorganized.  They know when Christmas (every year), Memorial Day (name all the annual holidays) and CES 2014 is. They don’t get around to doing things until . . .

Whoa! It’s Thanksgiving! I need a holiday campaign!

There’s little planning coming from the Veeps who walk the halls of our hallowed clients marketing departments.

Even the big ones.

They’re too busy. Marketing.

I’ve been on the agency side:

Agencies are insecure. We have an RFP, all hands on deck! It’s due in (name your extremely stupid timeframe here). Each team must develop creative in a week, present internally, and one selection goes forward (or maybe two because the Creative Director wants to see how things play out).

We want this client on our roster! We’ll get more X business!

Nights, weekends and holidays are out. Move out (guaranteed, paid) client projects!

Work hard and fast so we can WIN!

Spend hard cash on prep and traveling to the pitch.

Be stupid.

Now, it was lovely to read that Shane Atchison, CEO of Possible chose to tell the prospective client NO – we won’t work over the holiday (and then still get the opportunity to pitch at a later date). But Shane has that giant holding company behind him – as well as other things (reputation, reach, or could it be creative?) that made the client rethink the RFP deadline.

Not all of us have that luxury. Especially when you’re a smaller, independent agency. Every dollar counts. Really.

So we must pick our battles – or RFPs – carefully.

Preparing to pitch a Dream Client quickly becomes a nightmare when – not only trying to cover the costs associated to the pitch, but what about the work in progress that’s set aside, coupled with working your teams until they’re bleary-eyed – you realize that that piece of business won’t pay for the time and effort you just “invested”.

And please, never say that giving work away for free is an investment.

You just did a whole bunch of stuff for free.

And I’ll bet you didn’t track how many employee hours went into the RFP either.

This is the cost of new business.  

Or a Dreamy New Client.

A client is truly dreamy when they appreciate your agency – for the creative and for the people who make it.

Otherwise, they just aren’t that important. They’re just . . . expensive.

Be smart in 2014. Evaluate what a client brings to your agency. 

Advertising In Vegas And Bail Bonds

So I’m watching Sunday Night Football – yes I have a severe food hangover – and I saw this awesome spot for Goodfellas Bail Bonds. Don’t know if they have an agency, but this is “brilliant”. I couldn’t catch all the lyrics though.

And their spot ran right before game start.

Timing is everything.

This spot is simply memorable - isn't that what we're going for in advertising?

If I get arrested for too many links per post, they’ll be my first phone call.

And speaking of advertising, if I see another Lexus Holiday spot I’m gonna need those guys.

By the way, should you be visiting my hometown and get caught doing something stupid (it happens), you should call Goodfellas. 

Where else can you get a Free Ride Home, a Free T-shirt, and a Free Hug? 

Goodfellas, in Vegas!

You Need A Project Manager

You need a Project Manager to organize your work. You know, the person who knows what comes next and can prepare for it (planning). To remind everyone there is an end date (deliverable). And to keep everyone on task (not a taskmaster, mind you).

The keeper of progress. Moving forward. Keeping your agency or department from losing its way.

Why? So you all don’t look stupid (negative).

Or, so the Senior Director of Account, the Executive Creative Director, or the Senior VP of Marketing look like heroes (positive). Or at the very least, you don’t have to answer to your superiors because something, very simple, was executed in a very lame way.

No one wants to look bad. But when the daily routine gets done with a lot of internal strife, or delays, or at extraordinary cost (waaaayyy above estimate, or department budget) – it gets noticed. The CFO, CEO, Owner, Partner – the folks who make the decision as to whether that Director or VP is actually worth the big money they are paid – they notice.

In other words, the bottom line is that a Project Manager will save your strategic, creative ass.

This isn’t about telling you what to do, although it can be (if you’re lazy, or off on The Next Big Thing, or golfing, or at yet another conference on how to make your agency more awesome) while active projects languish.

A Project Manager keeps things organized for those who find organization a pain in the ass. Or worse, unnecessary (you are doomed to fail if you think this way).

A Project Manager keeps the team – your team – on task. And that indispensable individual is forever aware of the things that can derail a project (these are risks): an AE who has to have this now (resources). Client changes that affect scope (time + dollars). A creative director who doesn’t know what he wants until he sees it (unimaginative). An Art Director/Designer who keeps tweaking a project until it’s ‘perfect’ – and wrung-dry of available dollars (unsupervised).

If you don’t have a Project Manager, then Account, Creative, Production – and yes you, Management/Owner – are doing the work.

Or actually, doing the cleanup.

Messy. And a huge waste of time.

If you cared about your Agency or Marketing Department, you’d run out and poach the best Project Manager you could find.

Now ditch that personal assistant or life coach and put those dollars to work.

So you can do great work – and keep your job.

Who Knew That Meth-Resistant Would Be A Selling Feature?

I can only imagine the creative sessions for the ad I saw last night. The one for Zephrex-D. I saw the spot twice, and the first time I really didn’t pay attention. Then the second time I stopped – whoa!

And in a touch of irony, the spot featured a teacher, in a science class no less. 

How original.

You can check out the spot here.

Meth-resistant was the selling feature. Safety in your community too - oh, that's a by-product of meth-resistance. I can’t remember exactly what they said, but yes, that was the crux of it. Wow, and I didn’t know this was something that was high on the list of pharma development - like vaccines or antibiotics.

What the heck is meth-resistant?

Intrigued by this notion, I had to Google it. So I found this article on MarketWired. (they write about Nexafed which is the same thing (in my super-educated opinion) - Zephrex-D is from a different pharmaceutical company and has a snappy name.

So the drug does what Sudafed® does (keeps our sinuses clear), but the bad guys can’t turn it into meth.

Evidently, in order to make meth, the stuff in Sudafed crystalizes (which is good) but Zephrex-D turns into a goo (which is bad).

From MarketWired:

“The study measured the ability of NEXAFED's IMPEDE technology to disrupt the extraction and conversion of PSE by meth cooks using common clandestine meth lab processes. When simulating large scale manufacturing to extract and convert pure PSE into meth, researchers found that NEXAFED's IMPEDE technology yielded no measurable PSE extraction, representing a significant impediment compared to the control Sudafed(R) tablets (Sudafed(R) is a registered trademark and product of Johnson & Johnson). When tested under the "one-pot" conversion method, the study indicated that current IMPEDE technology tablets had an approximate 38 percent yield, nearly half the average meth recovered compared to the control. Currently, Acura Pharmaceuticals is improving its present formulation and developing new IMPEDE 2.0 technology, which yielded no measurable amount of meth with the one-pot conversion method in initial testing of a prototype formulation by an outside laboratory.”

This all makes perfect sense to me. So now I guess we should look forward to IMPEDE 2.0 technology. I already feel safer. No more one-pot meth on the streets. Well to be accurate, Zephrex-D® uses Tarex® technology. I'm sure they're all the same thing that keeps us safe.

I wonder how the ad guys will translate that?

I don’t know, it seems like a whole lot of work to buy enough Sudafed to make meth. I guess I don’t have enough initiative to do drugs. Or buy drugs.

Well, I’m not exactly their target market.

So I have to ask: WWHD?

Wishing I Weren't Here

I used to feel that way.

So I love the new (and brilliant) campaign for British Airways – it just rings true for me. Digital billboards where a little boy points out the (real) plane flying overhead, and the destination with fares are displayed.

The premise (of course you know) is that we (well some of us) look up and wonder where that plane is headed.

I used to do a lot of that.

I lived in Portland, Oregon – where there are a lot of cloudy, dark, rainy days.

Yeah I know it’s a cool, hip place – full of creativity, great bands, awesome food, big trees, a terrific transit system, The Best Micro Brews, friends and family, and rain. It just didn’t provide me enough sunny days to survive. Really.

So I moved to the desert.

Way back, when I lived in Bonny Slope (which is now mostly homes squished together), I cherished summer. I spent the sunny days outside working in the yard, fixing some weird thing on the house (which always seemed to need something done), or my favorite thing: sitting in the sun reading.

Then

Now

I was located on a flight path – don’t know where the planes were going to, or coming from – but I always looked up and wondered if they were on their way to some wonderful, perennially sunny destination.

So, yeah. I did look at planes in the sky and wonder where they’d been and where they were going.

These days, I’m on a flight path that heads out of town. People on planes leaving Vegas.

But now, I just look up and think, ‘thank you for leaving your money.’

When an economy depends on others who need their time in the sun I am thankful. Oh yeah, and that gambling thing helps too.