How Clients Can Get the Most From Their Agencies.

I have worked for many great agencies in my career.  I have also conducted agency searches for clients like Jenny Craig, Raley’s Supermarkets, and Jacuzzi. I believe I have a perspective from both sides of the street.  Consider me a person who loves both worlds and wants to bridge some gaps.

I think that there are a number of factors today that are unique to these times that strain client agency relationships.  I have summarized some in a previous blog called What’s Wrong with Client Agency Relationships?  There is No Romance.

So going into a New Year I thought I would offer up some thoughts on how to get the most from your Advertising, Public Relations or Digital Agency.

1. First and foremost educate them.  The more your agencies know about your company and you the more they can help. This is more than directing them to your website. When I worked at agencies I rode with the sales force, I worked in stores; I smelled the product and sold the product. I met the R& D people. I went to the factory.   I was immersed in the brand because a client invested in me.  I appreciated that investment and I wanted to reciprocate with hard work and love for the brand.   Disappointment was not an option.
2. Give them clarity.  One of the worst feelings I had as an agency person was getting a terrible briefing from a client.  You could ask all the right questions but sometimes clients provide a bunch of mumbo jumbo as direction. The briefing seemed to come out of a blender. Probably because they were trying to regurgitate a number of diverse inputs internally.  Driving back to the agency I knew it wasn’t going to be a good day because I was coming back empty handed.  I would have to play the client and try to make something out of nothing.
3. Inspire them.   When I worked at JWT in a different day their symbol was an owl and a lamp.  The owl was for knowledge which equated to finding insight and the hard work which knowledge takes.  The lamp was for magic and yes advertising is magic.  It is mercurial.  To get great advertising you have to inspire your agency to innovate.  That is scary for many clients in this consensus safe keep my job world. The clients who got the best work were the outlaw clients who were a different breed within their company.  They swung for the fences and they got work which sometimes struck out but often went over the fences and their careers soared.  Aren’t you tired of playing it safe? You can’t change many things in life but you can change how you play it. The amount of time spent in that client chair and that office will have a limit. Don’t you want to make if a hard act to follow?

More thoughts to come.

You can connect with Hank on Linkedin

http://www.linkedin.com/in/hankblankcom

Follow his updates on twitter @hankblank

Be stupid with him on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/hankblank

Watch some videos on http://www.youtube.com/user/MrHankblank

In the spirit of Christmas download my free audio CD called Hank Blank’s Guide to Holiday Networking.  Adjust the volume up a bit.  Hope you enjoy.

How Agency Principals Can Get More New Business In 2012. You have to Leave the Embassy.

This is my third blog in this series about How to Get More New Business in the coming year.  Something I am sure that most agencies would love. My gut and the street tell me it is going to be a better year and I am closer to the street than most people.

I wrote the initial blog about the need to change to get New Business.  Change is very difficult for many advertising, PR and digital firms. They readily advocate change for their clients but rarely practice it for themselves because real change is very hard.  The most common change agent is the pain of lost accounts.

That blog was followed by How Agencies Can Get More New Business in 2012. You Need a Plan. Often Said Rarely Done. Few agencies I talk to have a New Business Plan.  Sure they want more revenue but that isn’t really a plan.

Here are some thoughts on how Agency Principals can get more New Business in the coming year.

The first tip I can offer Agency Principals is leave your Embassy. I think that most Agency Principals are outside people.  They are finders versus grinders.  They are presenters versus listeners. Why do outside people let work turn them into inside people and weaken one of their core strengths; their external identity and awareness?   Why do they get so immersed in the business versus working above the business?  I know it is all about the money but I also believe that for many it is easier for them than leaving their compound.

By staying at home they lose something very important to their long term brand and that is their agency’s brand personification.  If your name is one of the names on the agency door you are the brand.  Yes you.  You personify the agency. You are the face of the agency brand and if you are not seen you will soon be forgotten. “I haven’t seen them in a while” will be your descriptor.

I recently had lunch with the head of marketing for a well known company here in the OC.  I asked them if they regularly receive packages from agencies. “Sure” they said like those mailings were akin to the regular trade publications or the junk mail they receive. “Do you ever read them?”  I asked.  “No.”

No is a dead end road with no U turns.

If you are an agency principal you stay inside your agency embassy sending boxes to strangers saying you would be perfect for them or you can leave the comfort of your embassy and leave the land of No.  Which is a better use of you time?

Here is where I would start.  First don’t just send the junior people from your agency to your local AAF, PRSA, IABC, or Digital Marketing Group. You should attend with them. Why would I do that you will ask?  There is no New Business there.  Yes you are right there is no New Business there but your reputation and your word of mouth is created there.  You network for social currency as well as financial currency.  You can underestimate its returns.

Clients with problems want to connect with Agency Principals who are leaders.   Leaders have insights, smarts, compassion and reputation and these attributes are amplified outside of the walls of their embassy.

More to come.

You can connect with Hank on Linkedin

http://www.linkedin.com/in/hankblankcom

Follow his updates on twitter @hankblank

Facebook http://www.facebook.com/hankblank

Watch his video on YouTube on Why It’s Time to Change the RFP Process.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6jEGgVHx_g&list=UUEigDTyDiFGXVfyg7sRErOg&index=8&feature=plcp

In the spirit of Christmas download my free audio CD called Hank Blank’s Guide to Holiday Networking.  Adjust the volume up a bit.  Hope you enjoy.

How Agencies Can Get More New Business in 2012. You Need a Plan. Often Said Rarely Done.

I wrote the initial blog in this series on How to Get More New Business in 2012 around the need to change which is difficult for many advertising, PR and digital firms.

Well the second step in order to Get More New Business in 2012 is to have a plan. This is very different than a wish.  It is not “We need to get three large clients in the coming year.”  How many times have I heard that?  I wish my kids would return all the money I had lent them on the promise that they would repay me.  When I heard these statements at work and at home I knew immediately that neither would happen.

It is important to build it on a financial goal of a certain amount in revenue but that’s just one piece of the plan.  A plan needs structure, persistence and follow up.  The same discipline that most agencies provide for their clients.  It needs specific action steps not nebulous wishes in a new business planning session ridden with bravado that vanish with the next client panic.

Action steps with accountability.

First you have to identify what sets you apart.  During my agency searches I see a lot of non differentiated positioning statements.  ‘We focus on your ROI.” “We drive sales.” “We provide results.”  “We help companies become successful.”  “We provide large agency expertise with small agency responsiveness.”  These aren’t positioning statements from a decade ago but from today.  It is time for something new isn’t it?

To Get More New Business in 2012 you have to focus on who you want to chase and date.  New Business is similar to romance. When you are tired and are ready to go home what client prospect makes you want to do that little bit extra, that added effort, that additional outreach?

You have to be realistic. Who are you suited for? Who would love you?

I have been in too many meetings when people said “We need bigger and well known clients” and then they throw out the name of a giant they couldn’t possibly land and everybody gets the rah rah rah.  I am not saying aim low but I don’t think that Ford is going to work with you just because you all love cars and your first car was a Mustang. There is passion and then there is futility. They are often tough to recognize.

The written New Business Plan part is rather easy.  After all it is all words.

The hardest part is developing the agency marketing materials because that takes resources that are scarce in these times.  “We will schedule it in” could be added to the three biggest lies in the world joke.  Getting things done on time often leaves the most creative agencies with two left thumbs.

The answer is simple.  Invest and hire the best freelancers or firms to produce your marketing materials, get your agency exposure and pay them well. That is what you tell your clients.  Do it for yourself. The New Year is coming.

More to come.

You can connect with Hank on Linkedin

http://www.linkedin.com/in/hankblankcom

Follow his updates on twitter @hankblank

Be stupid with him on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/hankblank

Watch some videos on http://www.youtube.com/user/MrHankblank

Check out some New Business CD’s on http://www.hankblank.com/speaker.php

How to Get More New Business in 2012? First you need to change.

I think I have a unique perspective on New Business Development as I have been a new business hunter and have conducted agency searches for companies such as Jenny Craig, Raley’s Supermarkets and recently Jacuzzi North America.  I have shared many blogs on how any advertising, digital or public relations agency can get more business.

The first and often most important way to get New Business in the coming year is to change.  One simple word but one difficult road for many agency principals.

Some agencies may come across this blog because it may offer the hope of quick and simple ways to generate new business in the coming year.  They don’t understand that hope is not a plan.  New business is not a serendipitous act. It is a blocking and tackling type of grind. It takes a lot of work and that’s a drag. It is easier to Google for quick solutions.

All agencies have a choice.  They can change or they can remain the same.  Most agencies are poor at making changes to their New Business process.  It is easier to profess they are Cobbler’s Children, a comfortable excuse but not an enlightened business decision.  How would your employees react if you announced at the end of the year that there were no bonuses or raises because the leadership team of the agency would rather be Cobbler’s Children than aggressively promoting themselves? How come what is clearly intolerable for some becomes acceptable to others?

Although most agencies are great change agents for their clients, they are often slow to change for themselves and even slower to invest in the process.  Advertising cynics always used to ask why agencies never advertised if they were such strong proponents of advertising.  There are new ways to advertise your firm today.  If you don’t own the entire first page on Google when people search for your firm you are failing a key test.

Many agencies only change their new business strategy when there is pain and then it is often too late. They are motivated by pain when they should be acting on a plan.

A couple of years ago I was telling my coach who is basically my accountability partner that things were a little slow.  When you own your own business there are times of being in an oasis and time of being in the desert eating sand.

She asked me what I was working on to promote myself.  I told her that I didn’t have any time to work on promoting Hank Blank because I was trying to get more New Business.  She looked at me as if I were on the moon.  I changed my thinking and more importantly my behavior. Many agencies are quick to realize the rationale for change but slow to act on it.

I saw Tony Hsieh, from Zappos at an event in Orange County a couple of years ago.  He said something that changed me.  “Don’t chase the money.  Chase the vision and the money will come.”  Easy to think about, tough to do.

To get more New Business in the coming year you need to chase your vision and not the money.

Can you change?

More to come.

You can connect with Hank on Linkedin

http://www.linkedin.com/in/hankblankcom

Follow his updates on twitter @hankblank

Be stupid with him on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/hankblank

Watch some videos on http://www.youtube.com/user/MrHankblank

Check out some New Business CD’s on http://www.hankblank.com/speaker.php

It’s Time for Clients to Change the Agency RFP Process.

I have conducted agency searches for companies such as Jacuzzi,  Jenny Craig, Villeroy & Boch, and Raley’s Supermarkets and also spent years developing successful New Business programs for agencies. I have seen life from both sides of the street and I believe the RFP process is broken.

I don’t know who homogenized who first but when I talk to clients they tell me that all agencies are the same.  I was somewhat skeptical when I heard that but now I believe it is true.  Advertising and PR firms have largely commoditized themselves.  How did it happen?

I am sure that years ago clients got a copy of a traditional RFP.  Please tell us about the size of the agency, relevant experience in the sector, key people that will be assigned to the account, etc, etc, etc. Not much has changed in years. The dance is the same and most agencies have learned the dance and perform the same way.

What I see in most Capabilities presentations that I receive in response to the first request for capabilities is submission to conformity.  The majority of these capabilities decks have the mandatory logo page of current and past clients. Then you get their Org Chart.  This is followed by the page of team profiles mentioning the largest agencies the individuals have worked at and the largest clients they have worked on even though it was probably somewhere else long ago. Then you have the agency discovery process which is mostly mumbo jumbo in the end.  The acronym to describe them may be proprietary but the content is basically the same and the process is largely derivative. Interspersed are some cases which may or not be relevant. You see one you see them all.

When I send out my RFP to a list of agencies I don’t tell the agencies how to present or the order but it rarely changes no matter where the agency is located or the spec of the review which is always dramatically different each time.  I tried to change the process by only sending out short 2-3 page RFP’s but while the input may be different the output is the same.

When we meet, the President or New Business person opens followed by the Research or insight person.  Then the head Account person gets inserted in the process and then the Creative show.  The media person may get some time with not enough time.  And then the President closes. “We want your business. We’d be perfect for you.  Yada Yada Yada.”

I think the RFP process is broken for both parties and it compromises the process.   We need to do better today in an age where we have more tools.

What about a Request for Clarity and Interest Proposal.  Please provide us with a one page summary of your agency matches our needs based on the following criteria we are looking for.  If you are interested in pursuing our business and meeting you please provide a link to a You Tube video no longer than fifteen minutes on why we should meet.  We look forward to your proposal.

The video will quickly make it apparent if these are the people you want to work with.  One video is worth more than a thousand words these days.

Marketing has changed dramatically.  Let’s change the dating process.

Hank Blank conducts agency searches for clients in a new and productive way and also helps agencies improve their New Business process and move it to today’s times. Hank speaks to agencies on Why Agencies Don’t Want New Business to help them change and to many companies and organizations.  You can check him out by doing a Google search on Hank Blank or visiting his site at www.hankblank.com.

You can connect with Hank on Linkedin

http://www.linkedin.com/in/hankblankcom

Follow his updates on twitter @hankblank

http://www.facebook.com/hankblank

Watch a video on this topic.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6jEGgVHx_g&list=UUEigDTyDiFGXVfyg7sRErOg&index=8&feature=plcp

New Business Tips from an Agency Review Consultant

Last week I posted a blog called Things That I Have Learned as an Agency Review Consultant.

Just some perspectives from the reviews that I have been involved with that I thought could help both agencies and clients.

I have conducted the Jenny Craig, Villeroy & Boch, and Raley’s Supermarkets agency reviews and many others. I began my career developing successful New Business programs for agencies.

So here are some simple tips to help your agency improve your New Business process.

I believe that Capabilities presentations drown in a sea of sameness. Try something new to improve your odds.  When you get an RFP have you ever thought of just submitting a one page Executive Summary of your agency and then sending a link to a YouTube Video where you summarize in an entertaining way on camera why your agency should be considered? Believe me if the summary had the type of criteria that the client needed I would make sure your agency went to the next stage.  My job as a review consultant is to find the right resources for the client.

I don’t think that clients are looking to fill their office with thick Capabilities presentations.

If you want a sample of an Agency Executive Summary send me an e mail to hank@hankblank.com

Trust me that this is a difficult time for clients to take great risks.  When I inform agencies that they aren’t going to the next stage of the review because their experience isn’t really relevant they tend to be disappointed and say the thought the client would make the leap between what they submitted and the client was looking for. Once I was doing a review for a high end luxury product and one agency submitted a case they thought was relevant. It was for a semiconductor client that they positioned as high end.  Yes true. What agencies see a as a small step, clients often see as a chasm.

Try something new in the way you present.  What have you got to lose? New Business is a very low probability game so take some chances like your agency used to.  Hire a play producer or an experiential event person to stage something new.  Remember there is a huge difference between New Business and Advertising.  Try something creative.

Leave your smart phones in your office because they make you look dumb.  You might not believe it but it is true.  During a recent review I saw agency people sneaking looks at their e mails when other members of their staff were presenting.  I saw people doodling when their section of the presentation was done.  Are you becoming teenage children?  Multiple tasking is not good form during a pitch.  Shows a lack of respect.

I love trayliners.  No I don’t miss McDonald’s.  What I am talking about is a larger sheet of paper with the photos of all the agency principals and short bios or relevant experience of all the agency people that will be presenting in the meeting.  Believe me it is difficult to remember who is who when you meet six people in sixty seconds and this helps clients with names when they are asking questions.  In all cases, I always see the clients fold up the trayliners after the presentation and take them away.  It helps their recall when they are reviewing the agencies.

Simple but effective tips that will help you hopefully win more New Business.

Hank Blank frequently speaks on the New Business Process.  His presentation is called “Why Agencies Don’t Want New Business.”  To contact him to speak to your organization or agency send him an email to hank@hankblank.com.  He also helps clients find the right agency partners.

You can connect with Hank on Linkedin

http://www.linkedin.com/in/hankblankcom

Follow his updates on twitter @hankblank

Facebook http://www.facebook.com/hankblank

Watch his videos on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/user/MrHankblank

Things I Have Learned as an Agency Review Consultant

I have conducted the Jenny Craig, Villeroy & Boch, and Raley’s Supermarkets agency reviews and many others. I began my career developing successful New Business programs for agencies.

I love doing agency reviews because I have seen it from both sides of the table.  During one search I will see more New Business presentations than an average agency will make in a year.  Some can be very stimulating and thought provoking and some can leave you looking at the clock. Most agency people would love to be flies on the wall.

So here are some observations based on my experiences:

Agencies have largely commoditized themselves.  I used to hear that term all the time and was somewhat skeptical but now, I really believe it’s true.

It is clear to me that the current review process is broken and needs to be changed.  I try to play my part and send out very short RFP’s.  I am pleased that I have as many recommendations from agencies as clients on my review process. Most of those agencies didn’t win the business.

What I see in most Capabilities submissions is submission to conformity. The majority of these Capabilities decks have the mandatory logo page of current and past experience.  This is followed by the mandatory profiles, and the mandatory agency process pages which are all derivative and mumbo jumbo. The acronym or name to describe them may be proprietary but the content is basically the same.

Then there are the client experience cases.  After all the homogenous sameness the only differentiation is relevant experience and clients tend to flock to that reassurance.

Let me also share some thoughts on agency New Business presentations.  When I send out my RFP to a list of agencies I don’t tell the agencies how to present the format, for most of the agency presentations are the same. How did that happen?

The agency President or New Business lead opens and closes the presentation.  Then other agency personnel follow in order.  Planning, Account Team, Media and then Creative followed by a close of “We Want your Business,” or “We think we’d be perfect for you.”  You’d feel indifferent as well.

Everybody stands in front of a screen looking at a PowerPoint presentation.  Often, many of the slides are all word slides. I have seen people point to the words for emphasis. I know that this isn’t new news but sadly things remain the same even though years have passed and everything has changed so much. The format is predictable and old, yet few agencies have departed from their presentation comfort.  If I can see the back of your head during a New Business presentation you aren’t connecting with me or the client in my opinion.

It may not be terrible stuff but then you drive to another part of town and you see practically the same content presented exactly the same way.  This presentation process doesn’t lead to a lot of differentiation and memorability in my opinion.  Most clients will tell me that at the end of the day it’s all a blur.  The review process in many ways is like pealing an onion with the hope of finding some fresh and different layers.

Sadly, many agencies talk about uncovering product differentiation and differences to leverage the prospective client, but showcase none for themselves.

Has your New Business presentation format changed in the last ten years?  No.  Then I bet you it is boring.

Remember that the medium is the message as that visionary Canadian Marshall McLuhan used to say.  When you say that you are going to show some fresh ideas on a monitor or screen that is older than what your kids have in their bedroom the thoughts don’t connect or convince in my opinion.  Your technology must be current.  Agencies are supposed to be at the forefront of innovation.

To be a little bit more uplifting I will share some simple ideas in my next blog on how to escape from this quicksand and stand above the crowd.  There are simple solutions.

Hank Blank frequently speaks on the New Business Process.  His presentation is called “Why Agencies Don’t Want New Business.”  To contact him to speak to your organization or agency send him an email to hank@hankblank.com.  He also helps clients find the right agency partners.

You can connect with Hank on Linkedin

http://www.linkedin.com/in/hankblankcom

Follow his updates on twitter @hankblank

Facebook http://www.facebook.com/hankblank

You may also enjoy Why Small and Smart is the New Agency Model.

How Advertising Agencies Can Get More New Business.

The Most Powerful Word in Agency New Business is NO.

Or Watch This Video on Why Agencies Need to Focus on the Things That Clients Can’t Do.

It’s Time for Agencies to Stop Being Cobbler’s Children

I have heard it time and time again, from many agency principals across the country on how they are the Cobbler’s Children.

First, I am truly amazed that many of these agency principals impress me with their knowledge and their smarts, yet they acknowledge dumping themselves down with a shrug of acceptance.

The irony is that these same agency principals set a very high bar for their work and their personal achievements, yet they compromise on marketing their agencies.

Why do they lag?

Funny how many agency principals will pay for a personal trainer, yoga lessons, pay for an outrageous meal, lease beautiful cars, but won’t use outside expertise in marketing their business. Yet, all day long they preach to prospects that they need an outside perspective and you can’t do it with your own vision.

So here are some thoughts on getting some shoes for your children.

First change your process. Reverse your priorities.

Most agencies start their Monday mornings with a review of the client’s status list.  Change that.

I think most agency people already know on Sunday night, what work is facing them on Monday without a status meeting.  That’s why they don’t want to go to work on Monday.

Start your Monday morning meetings early with a review of your agency’s status list of projects to market your agency and not your client.  Follow that meeting with your New Business Meeting.  Those are the two most important things you can do on a Monday morning because they are the only two things you can control in your life.  Can you control your client?

Review your client’s project list first thing on Tuesdays.  Many of the urgent projects will have been addressed on Monday without the status meeting.  Trust me on that.

Then it is time for agency principals to leave the office on Wednesdays and Thursdays unless there was a great networking event on Tuesday. Get out of your office because you are the face behind the brand. Attend networking meetings, visit your client’s stores, do store checks, have lunch with your clients, be outside.  Be the first agency principal in your market who regularly attends AAF, PRSA, AMA, IABC chapter meetings in your town.  Your time investment will be amplified through word of mouth.  You will be core.

On Friday mornings, bring in breakfast for all of your employees from a restaurant that is not part of a national chain.  Have a different employee each week bring in their favorite music and play it at breakfast or your sound system. On Fridays, ban internal emails.  If your employees need to get something done internally, insist that they meet with that person face to face especially if you are a larger agency.

Insist that all agency principals on Friday have lunch individually with a different employee, supplier, alliance partner or a person they have met while networking that week that is 10 to 20 years younger than them.

Can’t do that?  Then have a lunch and learn every Friday.

From 2 to 5 pm on Friday’s, it’s should be totally agency time.  Write blogs, update your website, tweet, get smarter by networking, and connect with people on Linkedin.  There are many things to do.

You need to be focus on being core and committed.

“But Hank, this would take so much time!”  Yes and no.  The question you should ask is, “Will this make my agency grow and, is this the way I would love to live my agency life?

Hank Blank frequently speaks to AAF Chapters on Why Agencies Don’t Want New Business and to many organizations and companies on Networking Your Way to New Business.  You can contact Hank at hank@hankblank.com He has two CD’s on his site about New Business development process that many have found helpful but then again why spend the money.

You can connect with Hank on Linkedin

http://www.linkedin.com/in/hankblankcom

Follow his updates on twitter @hankblank

Facebook http://www.facebook.com/hankblank

Watch his video on YouTube on How to Rise Above the Crowd.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkO7efleWX4

Who Has the Great Recession Changed the Most? Clients or Agencies?

We certainly have been living through a great game changer.  The great recession.  It started in 2007 so we are now in our 4^th year.  About as long as the U.S. was in the Second World War.

I think to answer this question we have to start with everyone’s target group, the consumer.

I think that the consumer has changed dramatically.  This week I read in the OC Register that 86% of us know somebody who is unemployed. I know hundreds.

The first thing that changed the marketing field was consumers switch to fanatical frugality. The overspending consumer of the past simply stopped spending.  Americans actually began saving.

Then consumers became victims of press paralysis with all the negative commentary.  It must be tough to write a positive article when you are sitting in a press room that is half empty.  I was on a business trip a couple of years ago running on a treadmill watching CNN in the morning when the market was dropping.  The visual was the stock ticker falling and the announcer exclaiming in a high pitch voice, “The market just dropped 10 points, another six points,” and so on. Sounded like an announcer calling out a horse race. Was this the introspective reporting Ted Turner had in his mind when he founded CNN?   When the network morning shows interview Dancing with the Star dancers and American Idol stars on the 7:30 segment that was always slotted for serious news you know that they are only interested in superficial hype.

I think that consumers have drastically changed in their behavior largely because of technology and fear. Many consumers have turned themselves into lemmings voluntarily.  If you see a lineup of 10 people at Starbucks, 8 of them will be looking at their crackberries.  They remind me of zombies in a Metropolis movie.  What are we afraid of missing? A job offer? A new client lead? Or a mundane stream of spam? Communications has becoming the following.  “Did you get my e mail.” Response.  “I saw it but I didn’t get a chance to read it yet.”  Shallow communication.  Do consumers connect with brands now in the same detached way?  In the past I remember when consumers would know when an advertiser had a new spot in their rotation.  Do they still notice?

So how did clients respond during the recession?  I am not talking about the Apple’s of the world who have seen no recession.  First clients cut marketing.  They had to learn to do more with less.  Most were slow to embrace social media.  Not enough belief in its sustainability?  No band width? Too much work?  Don’t get it?  Who knows.

Client decisions and approvals certainly take much longer and is consensus based.  Why?  Nobody wants to get fired.  Innovation and taking chances and sticking one’s neck out on new and possible risky ventures have been suppressed in my opinion.  I could be wrong but I have seen a lot of the former.

Some companies changed their definition of marketing.  Zappos defined marketing as service and invested its funds in that area.  Do lemmings remember service more than advertising and tweet, text and post about it?

How did agencies change during the great recession?  First many went into a bunker and hunkered down.  They quickly cut people and every expense.  They mimicked their clients and were slow at embracing social media.  Probably because they thought they didn’t think they could make money on it.  They missed the opportunity to use social media to market themselves while they were in their bunkers and continue to catch up.  A strong social media presence requires more sweat equity than financial but most didn’t want to invest the time.  If they had, today they would have an expertise they could sell.

So who in your opinion has changed the most and what will be the future?

Hank Blank helps clients find new agency partners and helps agencies rise about the crowd. You can check out what Hank Blank does in more detail by visiting my site at http://www.hankblank.com.

You can connect with Hank on Linkedin

http://www.linkedin.com/in/hankblankcom

Follow his updates on twitter @hankblank

Facebook http://www.facebook.com/hankblank

Watch his video on YouTube on How to Rise Above the Crowd.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkO7efleWX4

The Great Divide. Who Owns the Future of Advertising?

I have had a great ride in the agency world.  My first agency job was working on the McDonald’s account at Needham Harper and Steers in Toronto.  Then I worked for JWT in Toronto and Chicago for ten years and great places after that. I know the agency side of the street. There were 700 people at JWT Chicago when I worked there.  That office which was founded in 1891 closed in 2009.

I have been lucky and have conducted the Jenny Craig, Villeroy & Boch, and Raley’s Supermarkets agency searches and reviews for a number of smaller clients so I have seen that side of the street as well.  I have heard the client whispers, listened to their observations and published their perspectives in blogs like Why Agencies don’t want New Business.

Here is my take on what I see out there.  Advertising, public relations and digital agencies all hide in the comfort of their own silos and haven’t spent a lot of time in their peer worlds.  I seldom meet people at or in advertising or digital firms at PRSA conferences for instance.  There are exceptions but it’s rare in my opinion.

So if you were a client what type of marketing firm would you chose to move your business ahead?

Would you choose an integrated marketing agency who says they can do it all? I met with a CEO of a regional company who was skeptical of that brand promise and I agree. I think I first heard of the benefits of integrated marketing when disco was cool.  It is an old promise.

I know many digital agencies that have been around for fifteen years now.  Say it isn’t so but it is true.  The internet is older than many of your kids.  Nobody has ever heard of many of these digital firms in your market even though they may have great clients and are very capable in their field of expertise.  They know wireframes, SEO, and lots of good stuff.  Ask them what a GRP is and they will be lost.  Their discovery process if you are a client is learning about what you have forgotten. The majority of their people are incredibly smart but few are client facing. They started in the basement mixing up the medicine.

Advertising agencies are great at marketing their clients in the traditional ways.  They are not as strong in the digital space as their stand alone digital competitors. They are often right that the internet hasn’t created many CPG brands as the traditional advertising but they don’t have an answer about the future and where the world is going. Where would you tell your kids to work?

Public Relations firms are great at publicity and have various degrees of social media prominence.  Brand exposure yes.  Branding expertise for a client no. If Dan Draper was pitching against a PR firm he would probably end his pitch with a comment like “Public Relations is like pissing in a blue suit.  You get a warm feeling but you don’t really see it.”

This is the great marketing divide in my opinion.  I have great friends in every silo.  All have their place, all have their solutions but gaps of expertise persist.  None of them are best of class across the spectrum of a client’s needs.

Multinationals say they provide the solution but can you afford the solution and can they respond entrepreneurially?

So how do you win today if you run an agency?  I would start by being small, resourceful, and incredibility well networked to provide any marketing resource your client needs. Identify an area of expertise and market yourself aggressively around that thought leadership.  Network with partners in other practice areas that you can bring to the table and truly provide the best of breed every day but on a virtual basis as needed.

Hank Blank works with advertising, public relations and digital agencies to help them win new business and rise above the crowd.   He also helps clients find the best resources to accelerate their growth.  You can find Hank easily by just doing a Google search on Hank Blank.  He will own the first page. Google your firm and see what you own.  If you want some skin in the Google Game send Hank an e mail hank@hankblank.com

You can connect with Hank on Linkedin

http://www.linkedin.com/in/hankblankcom

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Watch his video on YouTube on How to Rise Above the Crowd.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkO7efleWX4