Top tips on how to get the worst out of your agency

1. Don't brief them just ask them to do an ad or a letter or something.
2. Never write anything down for them.
3. Definitely don't give feedback, why should they have any clues.
4. Make sure they understand that anyone who has money is in the target market.
5. Under no circumstances provide information that suggests your product or service is different in any way shape or form.
6. If they question this remind your agency of the power of your brand.
7. BUT Provide attachments, as many as you can find. Too much knowledge can't be a bad thing.
8. Talk about samples of one and your neighbours experience as much as you can.
9. Never tell them the results of the campaigns or impact on sales
10. Only allow a couple of days for them to produce the work, afterall writing can't be that difficult.
11. Ensure that they work at cost, profits just go on long lunches anyway.
12. Draw a concept for them in the briefing meeting, and tell them what your boss likes to see.
13. Ask them to communicate as much as feasibly possible in anything they do.
14. On no account ever present to them.

No more clicks

I did something very strange the other day. I clicked on a banner. Now with click through rates hovering around 0.2% on a so so day and the fact that we know there are some habitual clickers (god knows why) and some accidental clickers like my children (god knows where to). I think it is something to be remarked on. I don't click is becoming the modern equivalent of i don't watch ads.

Now I have to fess up. It was on a business site and the banner was taking me to a sister publication so you could argue it was a button or a link dressed up as a banner. So the only time i have clicked on a banner is in a contextual environment. I am not saying network buys don't cost in. Network buys clearly make sense for mass market products and awareness objectives but for specialist categories and b2b you may be better off looking at specialist networks or finding different ways to spend your money, like sponsored email, smarter search, links and buttons. Focussing on those people in the market mood. Never the less it still feels odd that this great thing the internet is premised on its ability to serve up relevant content but we still deliver marketing messages on a semi random basis.

The easy counter argument to this is that brands do invest in network display campaigns because it works; but you would be assuming that they can track activity through to sale. You would be surprised how few brands do this as well as they profess to.

Do you click?

Big budgets can lead to lazy marketing

Some marketers have too much money. If they had limited budget they would :-

(1) Make sure the website was a focal point of the business
(2) Invest time in creating interesting content covering the category, events to video.
(3) Get a few staff to blog their little socks off
(4) Optimise the site for organic search
(5) Share as much as possible with key influencers
(6) Capture customer data, give customers a personal service, do CRM, maximise retention
(7) Give their brand personality
(8) Develop affiliate relationships - old style and new style affiliates
(9) Link, link, link

... and so on and so on

If they have too much money they :-

(a) Do big ads and talk about big ideas, (not lots of great little ideas)
(b) Run regular DM programs, saying the same thing to the same prospects again and again.
(c) Do lots of paid search
(d) Try to sell off the page
(e) Talk about being customer centric
(f) Copy their nearest competitors

Technorati Profile

Inactive sponsorship

I am sure i am setting myself up for a fall and will be accused of being too left brain about this but I don't really get a sponsorship. What do Samsung get out of sponsoring Chelsea? What return on investment does Vodafone get from England Cricket. I think they call this passive sponsorship.

I definitely understand sponsorship when there is a shared relevance so Flora sponsoring the London Marathon and, is it, Pedigree sponosoring Crufts Dog Show. And it is even better when a sponsorship is active or strategic, where the sponsorship showcases the product or service. So I am thinking IBM and Wimbledon, Ariel and Championship Whites, SAP and HP in F1.

Can anyone explain what they get out of logo sponsorship?

Vauxhall's advertising turkey

My life was empty, I had no girlfriend and my car was getting a bit long in the tooth. So I popped down the Vauxhall showroom to get my self a babe magnet (subject to finance), you probably know it better as a Corsa. Driving home I spotted a young woman struggling to cycle up the hill. She was probably in her late 20s, sexy but certainly not too much for your gran.

I pulled the car over and out popped the integral cycle rack, it is hidden behind the number plate. By not getting out of the car (to fully show off the cycle rack remote mechanism) I risked her thinking I was incapacitated in some way but the risk proved worth it as she slid in beside me. We went to my appartment overlooking the Med (Medway) and made love all afternoon. Thank you Vauxhall, and thank you integral cycle rack.

P.S. The woman could have been my wife I cant remember.

http://www.visit4info.com/advert/No-Deposit-0-FInance-on-Vauxhall-Corsa-with-Bike-Rack-Vauxhall-Corsa-Range/68816

I know the ad has been around a while but it is bad, in fact so bad i couldn't even find it on youtube. Can you explain why the car is driven by a sock puppet? What is more If the best thing about your car is an integral cycle rack it might be an idea to feature it on your website rather than hide it. I could go on and on and on ...

In dark times

We know there is a recession on, we 'enjoy' access to news channels 24x7 so why do advertisers think they need to prefix their messages with a reminder of the state of our economy.

"In tough times ..."

Do they think consumers have temporarily forgotten about the recession (yes we are in one) or are they trying to persuade us that we are worth it. Perhaps they are right, there has never been a better time to replace the 32" flat screen TV with the 42" version! Unfortunately it just comes across as jumping on the bandwagon.

Too many organisations don't bother with customer research, probably the first thing to go when budgets are tight. Shame for them really they could have discovered very easily that they are wasting much of their budget.