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McCann pitted the robot against human creative director Mitsuru Kuramoto to create an ad for Clorets Mint Tab that conveyed the message: "Instant-effect fresh breath that lasts for 10 minutes." The client was asked to fill out a form with all the elements they wanted to appear in the ad. The AI robot then scrambled the database for ideas (humans were required to actually produce the final creative). The two spots would then be thrown to a nationwide poll, where consumers could vote for which ad they preferred. See if you can guess which ad was created by a human and which was created by a robot...
In this volume of our biannual trend publication, we explore the theme of Evolution. Agencies, consultancies, brands and other industry thought leaders largely agree that 2016 is shaping up to be an evolve- or-die year. Or, to put a positive spin on it, we might say it’s a year to thrive through intelligent adaptation. While some agencies are going the way of the dinosaur, a forward-thinking cross-section of shops are reporting increased revenues and profits by partnering with clients in new and innovative ways, by bringing their own IP to market and more. Other industry players need to evolve as major shifts in the way consumers use technology, consume media and engage with the world around them are forcing massive changes. Throughout the 2016 editions of The SoDA Report, we’ll explore top trends and behaviors that leading practitioners in our industry won’t be able to ignore as the year unfolds, and we’ll cast a spotlight on brands, agencies and individuals who are flourishing in this environment. Within Modern Marketer, Industry Insider and via our Digital Outlook Study (conducted in partnership with Forrester Research for the first time), we’ll also explore how the landscape of creativity and the modus operandi for agency-client relationships are shifting in radical ways. Spurred by rapidly changing consumer expectations and behaviors, agency-client partnerships are expanding in incredibly exciting ways beyond the marketing realm to include business strategy, R&D, product development and customer service. We are so proud of the growth and development of The SoDA Report over the past year.
The agency website is a vital part of the sales cycle, especially when starting out. It serves as the first touch point with a prospective client, where they come to see previous work, and get a sense of the ethos and working style of the agency.
An impressively executed agency website means more work with higher calibre of clients.
So if you’re starting up a new agency, or looking to refresh your online presence, you’re in the right place! We’ve scoured over the web to bring you these 30 stunning examples of impressive and creatively realised agency websites. Beautiful designs, exquisitely executed. Read on!...
As the CEO of Momentum Worldwide, a nontraditional agency that spans all facets of creative, media and ideation, Chris Weil knows how difficult invention can be. After all, he is credited with coining the term "phygital," which describes the increasing connection between the physical and digital world around us. Weil strives to bring what he calls a "total brand experience" to such clients as American Express, the U.S. Army and Microsoft.
It's one reason he was selected to serve as a judge for this year's Project Isaac Awards. In that spirit, Weil was asked to share his thoughts on invention. Interestingly, he expresses a desire to completely reinvent the agency structure from being execution-based to being growth-based. And he offers his thoughts on the difference between creativity ("inspired") and invention ("brave")...
It's that time of year again, when agencies use all their remaining creativity and joyful spirit to create festive holiday cards, videos, and websites. It's also the time where agency staffers are given free reign to get downright weird. And thankfully, this year did not disappoint.
If you're looking for messages of goodwill and hope for humanity, you won't find it in these examples. But you will find awkward people dancing around in onesies, a hipster santa, and a Pomeranian in 12 different outfits -- and isn't that the most you can hope for this holiday?
Check out this list of the weird, wacky, and wonderful world of agency holiday cards. (Warning: The audio in #3 is NSFW.)...
Almost every major brand harnesses Twitter to share news and build up a dialog with their customers. But, surprisingly, very few of the people behind those brands — the marketing teams, agency executives and creators of the tech that power digital advertising — use Twitter in the same way for themselves.
The Twitter accounts of most top marketers and agency CEOs are rubbish. They aren't even updated regularly.
That's why we pulled together this list of the best people in advertising and marketing to follow on Twitter....
The World Federation of Advertisers has devised what it says is the first Global Media Transparency Index. The index provides scores to the top 20 markets, based on buying practices and the relative ease or difficulty of deciphering how media rebates are applied to media purchases.
Currently, France is top-ranked in terms of transparency and openness about how its buying rebate policies work. At the other end of the scale, China, Japan and the Ukraine have been deemed “opaque,” with virtually no insight or effort to divulge the specifics of rebate practices....
Advertising executive Andrew Teman wrote a blog about why he's dropping out of the game because of Oreo's infamous Super Bowl blackout tweet...
....Real time marketing has become the "it" thing in advertising. Minutes after the royal baby's birth, a slew of marketers tweeted out pre-packaged images and messages "spontaneously" reacting (and capitalizing) on the moment.
Teman continues: "In bestowing this award on this piece of work, we’re actually exposing a really sad truth. That the advertising industry has become so top-heavy with cost and process and approvals and meetings and waste, that the idea of just making a simple image, and deploying it to a simple platform at an opportune moment, is considered at this point to be ground-breaking."...
... If you drill down into the top 500 agencies, you’ll find that the fastest-growing and most profitable firms are those that are devoted to specific areas of expertise. Social media, experiential marketing, and customer relationship marketing account for many of today's competency specialists. Other types of successful market specialists include travel/tourism, agriculture, food, pharma, and senior living.Solutions, not servicesUltimately, marketers aren’t buying a service from an agency. They’re buying a solution. And effective solutions spring from deep areas of expertise, not a from a “wide range of experience” as most agencies are prone to tout....
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Comic short films about the absurdity of the ad business have a proud history going back to Tim Hamilton's brilliant Truth in Advertising. Here's the latest one—director Tim Mason's No Other Way to Say It, about an amusingly bleak voiceover recording session for an ice-cream commercial. As the creative team tries to get the voiceover artist to nail the right tone for a single line, over and over—and the latter gets more and more distracted—the truth in advertising here becomes painfully clear: The project is mired in idiocy and inertia...
The ongoing McDonald's creative review initially included all three of the ad industry's largest holding companies. But WPP made headlines earlier this month for bowing out (leaving incumbents Publicis and Omnicom in the running), and the alleged reasons behind its decision are even more intriguing. The client required competitors to complete their respective pitches in 60 days, with a June 30 deadline, and presented contracts forbidding future partners from turning a profit on base compensation, according to sources with direct knowledge of the matter. Agencies would allegedly operate at cost before meeting unspecified targets for performance-based pay. "Clients have always had the power," said Bryan Wiener, executive chairman of 360i. "And performance-based compensation is not a new topic either, but it's very hard to find ways to make it work so that all parties are aligned. "McDonald's did not respond to Adweek's requests for comment on the claims, which stirred controversy among creative agencies. One source who requested anonymity described the terms as "unheard of" and noted, "I don't know of any business that operates that way."...
The U.S. women's soccer team has a roster of stand-out stars, but their individual strengths work best when they play as a team. That's the gist of a new, minute-long "American Woman" ad Nike launched as part of a bigger #NoMaybes campaign designed to elevate the team's profile during the FIFA Women's World Cup this week.
"We didn't want to go into this trying to make a women's spot—we wanted to make a soccer spot," said Michael McGrath, partner at Thousands Creative, the Portland, Ore., agency that created the ad.
Thousands Creative's own profile is getting a boost because of the work. The two-man shop was founded just a year ago by a pair of former Nike employees and currently has neither a website (just an empty Tumblr) nor publicly listed contact info....
U.K.-based trade body called for advertising agencies to strike against Anheuser-Busch InBev NV, citing “despicable” practices it says the Budweiser maker imposed on its members when pitching for work.In a recent pitch for work,
AB InBev asked agencies how low they would go on rates, how many free hours of work they’d offer and whether they’d wait for payment beyond the current 120-day period, the Marketing Agencies Association said Thursday in an e-mailed statement.
The world’s biggest brewer also asked agencies how much money they’d give back -- known as rebates -- beyond a minimum 5 percent the company already stipulates, to contribute to its corporate sustainability program, the MAA said. The organization called on agencies that work with AB InBev to strike starting April 7....
While the demise of ad agencies due to digital disruption has long been prophesied, the evidence just doesn't point to such an outcome.
The actual outcome, to date, has been the proliferationof agencies. As digital democratized publishing has opened unlimited new channels, the marketing environment has, in turn, become much more complex, with CMOs hiring a broad phalanx of best of breed channel-specialist agencies.
Indeed, “integrated marketing” — or the orchestration of this “stable of agencies” — has become the issue of greatest importance for CMOs, (according to a Forbes study), sadly surpassing even “effective advertising.” In other words, help in managing the marketing cacophony has become even more desirable than selling more product.
Forbes' survey also reported that a third of all clients report that they manage over 50 agencies and 22% have a roster of over 100 agencies! Clearly, Forbes was surveying the biggest brands, but having five or six agencies involved in a brand that spends under $10 million annually in measured media is commonplace these days. Sounds like a tipping point, doesn't it?...
Many agencies have launched their own incubators and accelerators in the past few years. Learn about 16 cool products agencies have launched.Agencies have, within their walls, some of the most brilliant creative and strategic minds. But these creatives are subject to the volatile business of agencies: Project work that comes and goes, relationships with risk-adverse clients, and billing rates that are stagnant.Agencies believe they are in the services business, so that is what they do. But in reality, they have the knowledge, expertise, and experience necessary to create products, services, and software.That's why so many agencies have launched their own incubators and accelerators in the past few years....
Here’s a puzzle for you: What do advertising and promotion managers have in common with construction helpers, carpenter helpers, stucco masons, typists, textile machine workers, and people who operate drilling and boring machines?Answer: They’re all working in areas where U.S. jobs are disappearing the fastest, according to a special report from 24/7 Wall Street.
Moreover, of all those categories, advertising and promotions is the worst, having shed 65% of all jobs over the past decade. “No occupation has lost a higher proportion of its jobs than advertising and promotions managers,” the report claims.You're better off working in a textile mill, running a drill press, or hauling two-by-fours for a carpenter than you are if you pursue a career in advertising...
As competition grew in the late 1960s and the phone stopped ringing, ad agencies turned to their public relations cousins and asked for help to stand out. From the mid ‘60s on, this took the form of pumping out press releases and cultivating media to cover agency activities. The vast majority of the content was announcing new clients an agency had picked up and awards won at the ever-increasing number of shows.
Both of these items quickly became table-stakes material, contributing no real differentiation for the agencies. Sadly, the biggest innovation agencies introduced in subsequent decades was hiring public relations professionals to work in-house.
All this did was reduce cost as these folks brought little new to the equation. The result is advertising agencies have confused public relations with brand building for the past 50 years. Do not get me wrong: Public relations has a part to play in ensuring an advertising agency is top of mind. However, most public relations practiced by agencies remain incredibly traditional and shockingly boring for an industry that prides itself on creativity. Avi Dan, founder of Avidan Strategies, wrote in a Forbes article that agencies that hire a public relations firm as a way to solve new business struggles are soon disappointed....
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The robot creative director directed a TV ad for Mondelez Japan and a human CD did as well. Guess which ad the audience liked best?