measure like this because we can

It’s five minutes before I have to run into a meeting and it’s been five minutes since my last meeting so there isn’t much time to blog, but something irked me in the previously mentioned last meeting: online advertising’s focus on click-through rate as a key metric.

Sure, there are some times when click-throughs really matter as a measurement tool…for example, I just finished some banners that support the launch of a new product and have a much-more-smoothly-written click here to learn more call to action that takes consumers to a microsite where there actually is more to learn.

On this most recent project, we’re just sending people to a website because we were told to have a call to action so we hit the objective of getting a 0.0X% click-through rate because that is what is says in the brief.

Who cares that there is nothing at the destination to make it worthwhile.

What is wrong with using online banners as sort of an internet OOH?

The product isn’t really one that makes sense for some rich media techie marvel, calculating effectiveness based on interaction rates/time is out. We have nowhere to send people for anything other than maybe, maybe some lame brand information and videos. But we want to build awareness. Is the OOH model so bad?

What with the ads are served to a targeted audience, etc and so on, is the online-OOH hybrid model a bad one for building awareness?

I know that it’s cool to see results that you just can’t see for other tactics, but if they don’t fit the brief, product or project is there a reason to force fit them? I mean, is there a reason to force fit them just because they are there?

The account team is saying that is must be done because it is a client mandatory and, while that is a better reason than “we ate paint chips as a kid,” it still doesn’t do it for me.

optimum gets connecticut

One of the things that bugs me about working in advertising is that everyone thinks that they are really easy to do and always wants to comment on them, pitch me ideas and otherwise give me advice and consent on what I do.

I don’t comment on Ginsberg’s opinion in US v Virginia to my lawyer friends. I don’t give investment advice to my financier friends (though maybe I should have to my previously-at-Bear-Stearns buddy). And I certainly don’t write pithy emails making fun of famous surgeons and how they perform surgery to my doctor friend based on having seen a few episodes of ER.

I don’t do this because I don’t know what the shit I am talking about.

Which is true about people who don’t know commenting on advertising…usually.

An attorney friend of mine – who will likely get an informed brief from me on US v Virginia just to show him up – emailed me a rant today about an ad he saw while watching the Yankees last night at his swanky bachelor pad in southern Connecticut. And it was pretty funny. So I am going to post it in full:

I couldn’t find the clip online (which is surprising, because the commercial airs literally every two seconds on ALL local broadcasts of anything), but there is a bizarre new Optimum Online TV spot that just has a relatively handsome dude standing in a totally blank backdrop talking about how awesome Optimum is.

There is a campaign that features the handsome dude and within that campaign a spot that is specifically for their internet service and is directed at Connecticut customers.

The handsome dude promises that Optimum Online is “5 times faster than that phone internet service.” That’s fine. It is pretty much common knowledge that telephones give you Lupus, so it’s not surprising that they would screw up your Google searching too. Stupid phones. But here’s where the new ad takes a new turn, a turn that I can’t decide whether it makes Optimum awesome or just a huge dick.

The handsome dude finishes his fictional-statistics schpiel and then snarkily jabs (paraphrasing), “Obviously Connecticut knows that one place where going faster is better is on the internet. What state wouldn’t want that…….? North Dakota, probably. Pshaww…”

Sooooo true. People in Connecticut LOVE mocking other states. They get off on that shit. In fact, every household in Greenwich just bought a separate internet connection for every room in the house to remind themselves how much they rule and how much people in North Dakota suck.

Optimum might have erred in their hubris, though.

I doubt they accounted for the business they would lose in SOUTH Dakota as well as the mocked and scorned North, because people in South Dakota are stupid and might not realize that only North Dakota was being singled out as being stupid, which they clearly are (I mean, did you hear that those people don’t even like to go fast on the internet?? They have problems).

So, in favor of Optimum being awesome: they like to rip on states other than Connecticut, thus breaking through and connecting with the target. And, the ad clearly prompted everyone in Greenwich to buy multiple internet connections, thus driving sales

In favor of Optimum being dicks: North and South Dakota

I report, you decide.

vml axed by dr pepper snapple group

The news is not unexpected if you have been reading the daily (ad) biz, but it’s still sort of sad to type because it definitely means layoffs for the good people of Kansas City-based VML. Dr Pepper / Snapple Group, formerly Cadbury Schweppes, has removed the last vestiges of a WPP roster of agencies that only a few months ago also included Y&R and Mediaedge:cia by shitcanning interactive shop VML.

Considering that the DPSG soda portfolio, with flavored sodas leading the way, has outperformed category competition from Coke and Pepsi, I can definitely see why sleazy VP of Marketing Sean Gleason would want to remove them. After all, they were responsible for the tragic development, launch and massively over-estimated sales of Accelerade. What? Eh? Oh.

The good news is that, with VML out of the way, Mr Gleason can fill out his roster of agencies with an interactive shop headed by a buddy, just like a tipster says that he did with media, advertising and below-the-line.

I don’t know if that accusation is true, but a tipster who has been right before says it is, and anyway it wouldn’t be the first time something like this happened in the history of marketing.

It happened on BMW with GSD&M and on Porsche with Cramer-Krasselt and on the Burger King interactive account with Crispin, Porter + Bogusky. It happens. It’s the industry.

But it still sucks.

It especially sucks for those who will lose their jobs…there is no official word that this will happen, but after losing the Burger King account to the aforementioned CPB and now DPSG, which had seen them as agency of record with responsibility for online advertising, major web redesigns on most brands, maintenance, etc and so on, it is going to be tough to retain their staffing model as is.

keep this from the clio judges

By purest coincidence, Bozo the Clown, the lead CD at the House of Biz, and I were walking into the office together this morning. Below is a transcript of the advertising related part of the conversation:

Bozo: I’m just like you, in the morning I put my pants on one leg at a time. The difference is, once they’re on, I shit gold Clios.

Me: You shit Clios when your pants are on?

Bozo: Don’t tell the judging committee.

no talking about advertising this weekend

I went to a friend’s place on the water this weekend for a little outdoors time and a lot of drinking…the group was split fairly evenly between regular people and advertising people (as an aside, it was a weird mix of ad people - my AD partner and me, three producers and a couple of accountniks with a digital guy turning up later in the weekend). Almost everyone already knew each other, but the hostess still felt the need to tell us that advertising talk was not allowed.

What is it about gatherings of ad people that make the conversation subject always be advertising?

At any rate, the hostess told us all that advertising was off-limits and, despite a few slips here and there, we all listened…and we were admirably multi-topic in our conversation.

That meant no bitching about work, no uncorroborated gossip about competitive agencies, no fits about clients…nothing. It was glorious. And it helped make sure that we didn’t devolve into our own little conversational ghetto.

I might make that rule a general one.

It’s nice to take a break once in a while (says a guy who works in advertising and spends his spare time blogging about advertising).

below-the-line agencies should stay there

It seems that every company with a Photoshop license seems to think that they are an ad agency…like this partner agency that I am working with. They are a below-the-line/brochure shop and every time they present new creative, they always seem to have somehow slipped a brand ad into their presentation.

Weird.

Of course, they say that it’s only “to illustrate the holisitic nature of the idea” but we all know what they are really trying to do. They’re trying to broaden their scope of work. They’re trying to win some of our business.

They’re so bad at actual advertising that they don’t stand a chance.

I lucked into finding out just how bad they are because I happened to be at our client’s office for an unrelated-to-their-presentation meeting and the client invited us in to the meeting. The look on their face when the ad agency turned up to participate and they knew they were presenting print was classic.

The look on my face when I saw their work was a mixture of reflexive disgust and ego-boosted glee.

The headlines were ill-punctuated written representations of an array of catered turd sandwiches. Oh, and they didn’t use the brand tagline (not that something like a tagline is important or anything). I couldn’t help but laughing…and then trying to cover it up…and ending up giving myself a coughing fit. My throat was sort the rest of the afternoon. But it was worth it.

Agencies of the world, hear me now – below-the-line, SEO, brochures, PR, promotions, etc and so on are an important part of the marketing mix but you’re in no way capable of doing the heavy lifting of brand building. Most traditional below-the-line is product selling, not brand building. And that’s cool, products do need to be sold last I checked…it’s just doesn’t really prepare you to do this advertising thing.

It’s harder than it looks.

i really wanted to like this…and kinda do

I swear, I really did want to like this self-promotion piece by new Los Angeles-based agency Inform-Ventures. No, seriously, I wanted to like it. I wanted to like it more than I wanted to like Indiana Jones.

Both had a lot of promise…especially Inform-Ventures, whose self-promotion piece opened with what can only be called a breakthrough image:

Of course, I could neither take a screengrab of the mailer nor could I copy it as an entire image, but I was willing to overlook that and give them a chance because I like small agencies who make fun of big agencies to the tune of a mailer that reads:

Old World Agencies,
Stop the fleecing of our clients! Stop the heavy taxation! Stop isolating our clients from the truth for profit’s sake! It not only hurts our clients, it undermines our industry and makes us collectively less competitive.

We do not live in a time where efficiency and authenticity can be forgone for control and greed. We live in a New World. Our clients need to be closer to the source… closer to the ground floor where the information, ideas, and execution occur.

Be honest about your strengths and when assistance will make a profound difference. Do not appropriate ideas from those on the ground floor. It is a disservice to the creators and our clients, and rarely goes unnoticed. The people and the press are too smart for that type of practice to succeed for long.

Empower your clients with new alliances. Allow them to be unencumbered by the ideas of the Old World. It will make our clients stronger and you more valuable.

With warm regard,

Inform-Ventures.com

Then the let me down a little bit with that agency name. Inform Ventures. Really? Really?

Then I went to their website…which has neat and expensive-looking Paper Vision Flash but ended up getting me stuck on a page and unable to click back to Home. A cardinal sin.

Such a cardinal sin that, coupled with their miss on the mailer and the agency name I was about to write a sarcastic post the vast wrongitude of their self-promotion attempt. And then ask them to please stop.

When everything changed.

Or at least most of it did.

Before I ruin it for you I want you to go to their website. Go now. Okay, now sit through intro. This may take a while.
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I know, it’s kind of ridiculous how long it takes…
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Okay, now click on “Old World” and let the pop-up box happen. Everything will be okay. Then click “Proceed with Caution” and let everything be wonderful.

I laughed out loud when I saw JWT’s site pop up…and just for shits and giggles I reloaded it again only to find the link point to DDB. I tried it again and it went to <a href=”http://www.deutsch.com”>Deutsch and then Ogilvy and then laughter got in the way of me clicking through the whole thing any more. What a classicly awesome smack in the face to the BDAs.

It made up for everything.

I really wanted to like this…and kinda do.

the power 150 guys are really friendly

Apparently, all it takes it throwing a public temper tantrum to get attention.

Of course, according to Copyblogger’s very own Brian Clark, I am a snobbly little ad agency ass so it should be expected.

Of course, Mr Clark is absolutely right about me…I am a snobby little agency ass. I’m not even mad he said it. His comment cuts to the core. He’s like a little buddha, all covered in click-throughs.

Anyway, after I threw the proverbial toys out of the pram about AdAge’s Power 150 and my blog’s conspicuous (to me, my Mom and at least three loyal readers) absence from it I got a really nice email and comment from the guys who run the list.

The comment from Todd Andrlik explains the situation:

I’m not sure what happened or how long you’ve been waiting, but you should definitely be added to the list and I’ll personally make sure that the daily (ad) biz is included with the next batch of blogs to be ranked - probably next week sometime. As Riot points out, the Power 150 submission form is the best way to go because sometimes direct emails get caught in a spam filter or accidentally overlooked. And, for what it’s worth, I did sift through my emails and spam folder with no trace of any messages from you - if I had received something, please know that I would have replied asap. Lastly, if our email response times are lagging, you’re always welcome to call Charlie at Ad Age or me on my cell phone. Both of those numbers are readily available to all. And I’m on Twitter, so feel free to use that too. Regardless, you’ll be added to the list soon.

Thanks (and thanks Alan Wolk for bringing this post to my attention so I could respond),

Todd

I kinda feel like a douchebag now…but I’m a snobby little agency ass so it’s expected, right?

the new bmw 7 series has got balls

BMW is launching the latest iteration of the surprisingly nimble while being objectively massive 7 Serives (that description hasn’t been approved through corporate…yet) and has German agency Jung von Matt on the case.

Instead of going the usual beauty shots of car driving around scenic corners or a strikingly posed car in front of a moody sky (which, strangely, doesn’t affect the lighting of the car), they decided to take the teaser/reveal in another place.

Red Square, Moscow.

Described as a 12-meter-high glass contraption (quick metric conversion: big enough to fit a BMW 7 Series in it), it was the centerpiece of the launch party and has gotten people talking. Even me.

The hourglass display was filled with more than 180,000 silvery balls that concealed the car…they were slowly released an the car gradually revealed.

Car launch events and marketing support are usually pretty bland because so much of the focus is on showing sheet metal that it’s nice to see a creative twist. The reveal definitely has some drama and extravagance about it, and I like both.

Also, it’s a nice nod to Russia’s growing economic clout (thank you regulations and silly laws that keep America from actually producing any of our own oil and thus enrich Russia oligarchs who buy BMWs…what a world) that the European launch took place in Moscow.

Privyet, 7 Series. Well done.

the power150 doesn’t like me and i don’t care

AdAge, the trade magazine with a happy knack for getting under my skin, has a blog ranking system, the Power 150. Once your blog is considered for this list that is so totally awesome and reliable that it lists Copyblogger as the third best media and marketing blog out there, it is ranked on criteria like inbound links and alexa traffic rate and the list creator’s personal ranking.

I know that the majority of people who come to my blog are here because they were looking for a certain picture of the Official Daily Biz Wishful Thinking Girlfriend and star of NBC’s The Office Jenna Fischer…and I know that traffic like that shouldn’t help my ranking. But…

1. There are still people (more than one figure, less than five figures of daily unique visitors) who read this blog for its actual content. Why, I do not know.

2. I can’t even get on the consideration list.

Apparently, all one has to do to get their blog into consideration for the list is to ask…and I say apparently because despite multiple emails to the guys who run it, I still haven’t gotten so much as a note back.

Now, people tell me that the guys are good guys but, I ask, what’s with not returning all those emails?

Because in the Politeness 101 class I had to take after calling my CD “Bozo the Clown” and then getting outed and having to atone for it, I learned that not returning multiple emails in even a perfunctory way is really pretty dickish.

I know that I may have posted once or twice about how I think that Bob Garfield is past his best and may have had a couple of posts on a resurgent Adweek hauling in AdAge and, yes, I may have even said that at this point if I get asked to be on the list I will “get all Groucho Marx on them about not wanting to be in a club that will have me.”

I like to think that I am blackballed which, if it is the case, makes this the Pirate Radio of blogs: hated by a major trade mag, reviled by the most famous ad critic in the world and steadfast in its refusal to place ads on the site because, dammit, it’s all about raw and authentic notes from the advertising underground.

With that, I will steal a classicly tasteless tagline from Pirate Radio in LA to sign off: The Daily (Ad) Biz - not as much fun as sex, but safer.

And this blog doesn’t belong in the Power150?