agencies archive at Annoying Design

Archive for the 'agencies' Category

Jun

Your Advertising Gave Me Indigestion

By ross 0 Comments

Categories: advertising and marketing and agencies

Too often we are forced to stare at advertisements — enslaved by intrusive ad placement.

Waiting in a move theater, before the previews, is one good example. It’s a frustrating experience, when the Coke ad comes on and interrupts your game of movie trivia with your friend, or whatever conversation you were having, and I know I’m not the only one who feels that way.

Advertising in its entirety is becoming obsolete, as companies rally around Marketing As A service (MaaS) — here’s one take by TheDrewBlog, and of course, Zeus Jones’ idea (pictured below). MaaS means providing value and meaning to consumers through products and expereinces, rather than just building awareness through messaging.

But MaaS is far out there for most traditional agencies, who are still focused on media buys. And so it all comes down to placement — which sometimes just feels like ad pollution. Continue reading ‘Your Advertising Gave Me Indigestion’

May

The Big Apple is big on Design biz

By ross 1 Comment

Categories: advertising and marketing, agencies, business and design

Bruce Nussbaum asks if New York is the new innovation and design center. I say “Yes” to design hub, but no to NYC as an innovation center. Here’s why:

Big Design companies are focused in NYC
Advertising Age recently came out with their 2008 agency report, which has a list of the top 25 ad agencies by revenue.

Ad agencies are not design companies (yet), but the line between product and marketing is blurring rapidly, and at the same time, digital marketing is growing as an industry — in the double-digits. Some of the big shops out of NYC: BBDO, McCann Erickson, OgilvyOne, JWT — all with interactive arms.

And then as s Bruce points out, there are a sh*t-ton (yes, that’s a technical quantifiable term) of small but leading design firms moving to or newly focused in NYC (Jump, IDEO, Frog, fuseproject).

But Innovation comes from small shops elsewhere
It’s no secret recipe that innovation comes from areas with strong academic environments — learning hubs like Boston (MIT’s Media Lab, Harvard), Pittsburgh (Carneige Mellon U and the Entertainment Technology Center), or Chicago (Institute of Design, Illinois Institute of Technology).

In fact, Pittsburgh is a great case study — Google opened up an office there because of the rich talent coming from Carnegie Mellon.

So yes, something is brewing in NYC — the ad/marketing industry is undergoing a transformational shit to a design-focus — and NYC has always been a hub for advertising.

And innovation can still be found where you might least expect it — the dark corner room with the jolt-cola fueled masters candidate. Ahh, I miss those days at the ETC.

Apr

Digital Agency Sites Suck

By ross 2 Comments

Categories: advertising and marketing, agencies and website design

When a quick-witted VP at Forrester was once asked why Forrester’s website is so awful, despite us having a multi-million dollar business in helping clients with their sites, the VP said: “the cobbler’s kids always have the worst shoes.” But should this be true of firms that actually make web sites?

For a few years now, some of the biggest digital agencies in the world have had awful web sites. Awful because they provided little to no compelling content that expressed the ethos of their agency, their point-of-view on the digital space, and the emotional tone of their past work.

Plus, most digital agencies’ sites always seemed to say the same thing and look the same way. An animated logo there, some rich, photography there that has nothing to do with their agency, and some copy that tries to sound nonchalantly confident. In fact, most digital agency sites have looked even worse than traditionally agencies. Compare Avenue A’s site to Leo Burnett’s, for example — the latter has a totally innovative web interface, while Ave A’s site has been the same few pages for the past three years.

Recently, two major agencies have redesigned their sites: R/GA and Critical Mass. Surprisingly or not, these sites have some visual similarities. But they are certainly a step forward.

I say it over and over — today’s digital agencies need to do two things:

Become a full-house strategic advisory to your clients — a strategy partner that leads them through the murky waters of the social web, WOM, and new media, and how that doesn’t just tie to a Web site, but to an entire business, instead of being just a production company.
If you’re going to talk the talk, you better walk the walk. And that starts with a unique Web site which expresses how you view the world, and what makes your work and approach a unique one.

So, kudos R/GA and Critical Mass for taking a stab at this. Digitas however still doesn’t get it. Can you please explain how random stock photography, and a web-generic layout will make any client want to partner with you?

RGA’s home page (above) showcases recent work with a strong focus on branding them as the agency of the “digital age.” [click image to expand]

CriticalMass’ home page (above) has got some random animation and links to the social web, like their flicker and twitter pages [click image to expand] (not sure why it’s two big for my browser window though.)