Articles to Help Your Advertising Agency Succeed

Articles to Help Your Advertising Agency SucceedArticles to Help Your Advertising Agency SucceedVery few owners, or partners of advertising agencies, will ever say their company is perfect. Or even close to it. But while most wont admit to 100% greatness, they also wont do all that much to improve their situation. And in advertising, if youre not getting better, youre going down. So here then, to combat the complacency, are 10 articles to help your agency succeed. From improving feedback and presentations to knowing some basic advertising methods, theres a lot to sink your teeth into here. Cut The Meetings In the advertising and design industry, meetings are the fleas that come with the dog. Some people like meetings, a lot. Others hate them. Most people simply tolerate them, often hoping for a snack or something else to make the whole thing better. But the sad fact is this most meetings are either completely unnecessary or way too long. Constructive Feedback This edition shine s the spotlight on something that not only improves the finished work, but the process, the agency morale, and the quality of the thinking involved. And whats more, it costs absolutely nothing to implement. It needs no extra equipment. It needs little-to-no additional training. This force for good is constructive feedback. Give a Good Creative Presentation The creative presentation, or pitch, is something that everyone in a creative department has to master. The ability to sell your work, and sell it well, is vital to your success as a copywriter, art director or designer. The following tips will help you to make memorable presentations that give your best ideas a fighting chance. Self vorrcken for Advertising Agencies Self-promotion is perhaps one of the trickiest projects any advertising, marketing or design agency can undertake. It seems odd to outsiders that this would even be an issue. After all, when youre the client, surely you can do whatever you want, right? Well, sadly perception is much more idealistic than reality. Here then are the reasons why self-promotion is so tough, and a few basic guidelines you can follow to ensure this task is both a fun and creative one and not a monkey on your back. Let The Creatives Present Their Own Work In advertising, marketing, and design agencies, different roles exist to facilitate the production of good, creative work. There are people trained in account management, others who are trained in production, and theres a whole department filled with creative minds. These are the copywriters, art directors, and designers who produce creative work that makes the agency what it is. The Pros and Cons of Timesheets Advertising, marketing, and design agencies depend on timesheets. They provide the data that shows them the hours that have been spent on each part of the project, what was done in that time, who worked on it and, ultimately, how the clients money was spent. But, while management loves timesheets, the ma jority of people who fill them out generally despise them. The Ups and Downs of Crowdsourcing If youre working in advertising or marketing, you will have at least encountered the term crowdsourcing by now. A term first coined by Jeff Howe of Wired Magazine, crowdsourcing is the act of taking a job traditionally performed by a designated agent (usually an employee) and outsourcing it to an undefined, generally large group of people in the form of an open call. Five Ad Men You Should Know All About Its easy to find articles about great men in advertising. Its a little harder to find articles about great women in advertising, but theyre out there. What usually happens, though, is that lesser-known people from the industry are fated to become forgotten, barely talked about and lost to the archives forever. Five such men are listed here. They have had an enormous impact on modern-day advertising, and in their day they were as talked about as Alex Bogusky, Lee Clow, and Dave Trott. Get to know them, and their work. The Advertising Awards That Matter Advertising awards are a very lucrative business, which is why there are so many of them. The entrance fees usually start in the low hundreds of dollars, and if youre entering several campaigns, you could be out of pocket by a few thousand bucks. Sometimes, even more. So, with advertising agencies having less money to spend, but awards mucksmuschenstill being one of the few ways to show major credibility, which awards should you try and win? Here, we outline the best award shows the ones that matter. Get To Know, and UseAIDA The acronym AIDA stands for Attention, Interest, Desire, Action, and it is one of the founding principles of most modern-day marketing and advertising. Its often said that if your marketing or advertising is missing just one of the four AIDA steps, it will fail. While thats not strictly true (a branding or awareness campaign does not necessarily need the Action step) you need to know about AIDA and use it whenever possible. Its a rule you need to learn well before you can break it. The Silver Bullet - Truth In Advertising A clever image is all well and good, but whats it saying? Lots of copy is fine, but how do you get people to read it and continue reading? Sure, celebrity endorsements work, but what message will they communicate? Theres only one answer to all of those questions, and its something that is at the heart and soul of every successful advertising campaign. The truth.