Creative Agency Secrets

If you are interested or curious about what the Current Big Thing called Social Media is, who does it and what they are working on / talking about.  There are a wide range of great groups mainly based inLondon (sorry outatowners) that happen most weeks / months.

If you ahve a reason to come to town.  Try and drop into one or other of these.

Listen, Learn, Talk….

Chinwag event  NMK’s Beers & Innovation, Minibar, London Geek Dinners, MoMo London, Social Media Club, Creative Geeks, She Says, Swedish Beers, Open Coffee, Tuttle Club / Social Media Cafe, Girl Geek Dinners, Wiki Wednesdays, Next Wednesdays 

 And of course the BIMA events

Thanks to Dierdre of Chinwag for the summary list. 

I met Tim at SXSW earlier this month.  He has written a seminal book called the Four Hour Work Week and it's being launched in London next week.

Tim has set up a pub sessio for any Uk blogger / social media types who fancy hooking up with him.  Wednesday 2nd April in the Chandos pub on St Martin's Lane, London WC2

Sign up here .

If you are a girl geek - keep checking the site as we may have organised an exclusive breakfast with Tim…… my brilliant idea [thanks Sarah for the support!]

Hung out at the Salesforce Christmas event last night. ….. Entertainers at the door were probably the best thing there.

But, once inside I met a fellow Tideway Scullers member who now lives in SF and we had a great chat about when they last won the Britannia and what Hugh Williams and Rolf Munding are doing now…… never heard of him before and gave him my card but forgot to take his… think he was called Kirk…

PS why were Google giving out biros?

I met Simon Gill from LBi earlier in the week.  Great conversation.

He has a new theory about digital marketing.  THere are two parallel universes happening online:

1. The "marketing" web
2. The "real" web

the former is just stuff done for the purpose of marketing.  A brand site, a cunning support microsite for a campaign.  Nice but no reason to return or bookmark.

THe latter is where the future of one to one and "conversational" marketing is going.  It is warm, compelling and creates a reason for the customer to return and to possibly ‘get involved’.

And it seems Dave Birss is onto the same track.

I met Mark last night for the first time.  We bumped into each other (metaphorically) as prize winners from the David Airey prize draw…. we were both prizes!

He works coaching creatives in how to get past creative block, improve work outputs and also with their managers enabling them to get better work from their teams.  His message to the advertising industry

Spend more time on the human talent in your organisations.  They are neglected at present.

Mark’s going to introduce me to the "planosphere" a group of planners who blog.
I pitched him on my opensource for agencies plan.  We argued a bit over the probably objecitons that a business would raise.  But I think I’ve won him round to the cause!

Mark’s other passion is Poetry and he edits a poetry magazine.

We are planning an event together.  This will follow the same format as the one I did in April with Adriana Lukas.

More news to follow…..

Dropped into the glorious boathouse offices of EML earlier this summer. They overlook the river Thames at Kingston and are only a short walk from the centre of town.  Dreamy.

Richard Parker is MD and has succeeded in growing the business with three new members of the organisation since we did a strategy session in August 2006.  Great work!  They are now the leading PR firm in the UK for key niches in the tech PR sector - a great achievement.

And to celebrate, they’ve had a new logo designed.

Had a steamy little cup of coffee with Rory Sutherland in the Cannery wasteland last month.  He’s a man always on the lookout for a new anecdote…. and I think I supplied a couple of appropriate ones.

We compared notes on what we are reading.
I’m doing "When we Came to the End" by Joshua Ferris (adland life in Chicago during the 90s slump) while he’s into "Get Smashed" by Sam Delaney.
   

We exchanged ideas on how to get the best out of Network Rail (annual season tickets for short journeys), driving into the office late, and what’s going on in mobile marketing.

I’m introducing him to Hugh McLeod, Red Spider and Beep Marketing….. and he’s looking out for jobs for me with small (er) agencies.

It’s been a while that I have had some close collaborators for much of my business.  I love meeting great professionals who are great at their job and who I can trust to help out my clients when they need it.,

Two of these guys are Julian and Leo.

Julian’s a finance man.  Numbers, accounts, mergers and acquisitions, due diligence and EBITDA just about sums him up. Despite this he really DOES understand how creative companies work and how to make money from them…. He works as a freelance FD and runs a firm that does outsourced finance and HR, Redfin. 

We are cooking up an idea for some syndicated research into benchmarking for Agencies…. watch this space!

Leo is the contrast - he’s my trusted WordPress genius.  I first met him via Julian Guppy of IT Dudes when he was working on contract.  Now, outside and on his own, Leo does loads of my clients web and social media work.  He is at Guild Media
and runs a small blog there.  What I value most about him is total availability on Skype / email / phone (even when he’s in Berlin) and the fact that he accepts that it is just possible that I’ve found out about a new widget before he has…. and isn’t too proud to implement it just the same.

I went off to have a congratulatory cup of tea with Lucian Camp of CCHM:Ping yesterday.  We first met sharing a platform speaking about marketing for professional practices way yay ages ago.

And he’s build Camp Chipperfield into a merger with Hill Murray to form CCHM and then they engineered the merger with Ping to make CCHM:Ping… and now they’ve sold.  Three years hard work beckon!

He is back being Creative Director, which I suspect is a great move back into a role he enjoys.  It’s rare to see a senior person de-mote themselves from Chairman to a dynamic, involved executive role.

We shot teh breeze in a small way discussing some of the issues facing integrated agencies.

Why oh why do clients and prospective clients insist on pigeon-holing agencies?  When you are integrated it’s pretty galling to hear that you are known for your direct work or digital or whatever….. particularly as you can hear one thing one day and the opposite the next.

I loved his description of clients.  There are those who have spent their careers in financial services marketing (he calls them "lifers") and there are others who have worked in other industries (he calls them "tourists").  Great!

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?