Creative Agency Secrets

Charlie Hoult points to a new Campaign conference called the Battle of Big Thinking.  Taking a lead from the NMK conference that let its platform to a clutch of new enterprise entrepreneurs for 10 minutes each, they have asked a load of big names to talk for 15 minutes about what is new in their space…

He asks if this is a true sign of paradigm shift or just the boys club having a few beers together…..
My view, posted onto his blog [which in true ad-land non-web2 way, is not available for non-subscribers to read….sigh] is below

Actually Charlie this is a thinly disguised attempt by Campaign to work out whether its readership actually wants to hear about this sort of stuff.

While trying to promote my research into whether agencies use Web 2.0 for their own businesses (as opposed to their clients’) I was turned down twice by Campaign journalists who said this was not something their readers wanted to hear about.
You were kind enough to review it.

Maybe, belatedly, they are realising that their world DOES need to know the relevance of Web 2 too?

Creating a viral advert is the holy grail for small brands who want traction but can’t afford to buy media space …… here’s a new tool that may help.  Zoopa

It enables collaboration from the community signed into the site.

Commentary from the Italian side is on Blognation

Zooppa is the first
Italian-American advertising start up that integrates the traditional
idea of advertising with an innovative web 2.0 twist.

Officially launched in beta this month, the start up is forming a
community of professional and amateur creatives and videomakers who
compete to produce the best and the most viral commercials.

The Zooppa model
Zooppa works with international brands to give users the chance to
create their own online commercials for the brands and get paid for
them.
There is a contest period in which Zooppa presents an agency brief from
an international brands. Based on the brief, the Zooppa community can
upload ideas or concepts for videos. They can also shoot their own ads
and upload them onto the site. After the production period ends, the
resulting videos are made available for online voting. The community
itself chooses the best ones which are rewarded with real money. Zoopp$
is the currency used and once a user has reached 1000 zoopp$, they are
paid in real money.

Web 2.0 collaboration concepts in production
Its an exciting concept for the advertising world and Zooppa’s aim is
to transform the traditional making of the advertising campaign itself
via online collaboration. In fact, it’s not just the winning videos
that are rewarded. The collaboration of ideas are also incentivised
through a bonus system.

Zooppa encourages different kinds cooperation between users. If a
winning video was based on a concept that another user suggested, both
the author of the concept and the winning video receive an additional
cash pay out.

I have a list of clients and contacts who receive emails from me with articles from time to time.  I use Furl to circulate links to these articles.

Let me know if you want to join the list and I can subscribe you or you can sign up yourself.  My id is rcaroe
Here’s how Furl works

How is Furl different than a blog?

This is a good question. Folks who use blogs know that they can
accomplish similar things to Furl using blogging tools (especially with
some customization). But just because something is possible, that
doesn’t make it the right solution to the problem. Blogs are an amazing
breakthrough for personal, digital publishing. If you have something
original/insightful to say, blogs are your voice. On the flip side,
Furl is focused on the consumption of digital media (including blogs).
Many of us read hundreds of articles and other items online that
influence our thinking (or are just amusing). Furl is our memory.
Although Furl has some features that overlap with blogging tools, blogs
and Furl approach Internet content in a fundamentally different way.
Blogs focus on the content you create (which often contains links)
while Furl focuses on the content you consume (i.e. what the links
point to). This is why Furl offers powerful features such as archiving
and full-text search, which apply to the linked page but don’t make as
much sense in the blog space.

We believe that serious bloggers will be some of the biggest users of
Furl. If you consume a lot of information through the Internet (as most
bloggers do), you need a way to "remember" (i.e. save and recall) what
you read, especially the most influential items. If you publish content
in a blog, you already understand the power of sharing your thoughts
with the public. Furl provides a turnkey solution to both of these
needs, allowing bloggers to focus on publishing new content while
saving and sharing their "latest reading" with their community at large.

I work as a non-executive for a couple of my clients.  I came across this article from the Telegraph in which the differences and similarities of a non-exec and an interim manager are detailed.

detail below.

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Creative Network Ambassador
Project Source     www.artshub.co.uk
Project Summary     Creative Republic is the new representative body for the creative and cultural industries in Birmingham and the West Midlands. Created by members of the industry it seeks to promote the wealth of creative excellence within Birmingham’s cultural sector. Its membership will be open to all people working in the creative and cultural industries in the region.

Creative Republic is on the brink of an exciting launch and seeks to become a membership organisation renown for the quality of its representation, marketing and networking opportunities. It has high expectations, vaulting ambition and a truly exciting agenda. It has some backing, some dedicated voluntary directors (it has just become a Community Interest Company) but it needs more.

It needs an ambassador.

A freelance contract worth between £15,000 and £18,000 is available for the right person or organisation between now and March 2008 to bring this nascent organisation to life.

You will need skill, imagination, superlative communication skills, dazzling networks and the inside track on how to get things done in the city. The successful applicant has the opportunity to shape and develop Creative Republic, create a buzz around it and its potential and bring a focus and clarity to the creative sector in the City as never before.

Start Date     1 September 2007
End Date     30 March 2008
Last Date for Contact     7 August 2007
Project Posted:     25 July 2007
Skills Required: Marketing     Public Relations  Arts

Contact me if you want to get into the website to apply.

I frequently work with clients on their biz dev - as a means of growing a business it is without compare IMHO.

I know my methods and there is a reasonably straightforward base template of activities and actions which then get customised for each situation (depending on experience, cash, skills and time available).

Two of my clients, Wave Creative Communications and Gabrielle Shaw Communications have kick-started their biz dev in the past couple of months.  And, despite knowing that hte base methodology is sound, it is still really gratifying when it WORKS - and when it works fast.

Wave chose to use external resource for appointment setting and after three weeks have two live opportunities and eight future opportunities logged for the next 6-8 months. 

GSC are doing it all internally and in the month of July have WON four new pieces of business - three in one week.  What was particularly encouraging was that we worked hard at pricing the work accruately and sending the right team to pitch and for one client we sent a more junior team to reflect the value of the opportunity and they won it without senior help.  That bodes really well for creating a culture of new business through the whole organisation.

I am so proud of them.

Here’s the base methodology

1. Identify your target sectors and named organisations and research
2. Add to your database
3. Decide how you will go after them and set up the process
4. Have support documentation / literature / credentials / website / direct mail ready
5. Contact by mail / email / voice and record your conversation
6. Do what you promise to do (send stuff, email, call again)
7. Flag future contact dates and have a process to ensure this happens

It isn’t hard to understand.  But what Creative Agencies frequently find is that it is very hard to do consistently when client pressures rise.  What I do is to help set up the underlying process to ensure it happens regardless of other things….. Sometimes it works brilliantly and sometimes I am less successful.

If you want a "healthcheck" for your own processes - call.

From time to time my clients get asked to perform in an agency selectio process.  I was recently asked to research all the available organisations offering this service to brands and thought I’d publish my findings in case anyone else finds this useful.

Agency Assessments International
Agency Insight
Optimum Strategy
Haystack Group
Agency Plaza
YCP
AAR

And the professional associations offer this as a service to members. I have linked to the page where they detail their services.

PRCA
ISBA
IPA
MCCA
DMA
The Marketing Society

I got this email from John Kearon, of Brainjuicer.  Asking me to fill in a research questionnaire to see how knowledgeable I was about the brave new online world.  He’s going to be speaking at the Marketing Society conference in November.

John Kearon, founder of Brainjuicer® will reveal the results of a dedicated piece of research designed to test and contrast the marketing community’s knowledge of current and future social and economic trends with those of consumers’. You will have you own chance to test your level of enlightenment.

But the questions required detailed market size knowledge and were deliberately slanted to be hard to get right unless you happen to have the latest survey of Second LIfe in front of you, worked in market research and had a photographic memory.

So when you go to the conference and hear how b****y awful the whole marketing world is about online and digital.  Take the lot with a large pinch of salt.

If you want to read a more honest assessment of the reality, ready my survey into Web 2.0 for Marketing Agencies.

I had a great meeting with Tessa and John from Head London - a funky digital outfit who seem to have tentacles into many parts of the marketing space - online and offline.

One of the key issues with young agencies and those at the leading edge of their expertise area is finding clients bold enough to try out your ‘best’ idea.  I have advocated in the past including your pitches in your credentials and also including proposed solutions that the client did not choose.

Head takes this a step further. 

They have used some of their hard-earned cash to fund a leading innovation in web TV plus a bit of fun…. welcome the England All-Stars.

They did a fine job of using technologies to create daily spoof TV shows using Sven and Maradonna puppets plus a back-up viral campaign that ensured fabulous ratings, a link up with a broadcast TV slot and some real humour to carry us through the World Cup.

What do you think?

Anyone interested in doing Public Affairs work for the London Olympics in 2012 they have called for expressions of interest….. details below.

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