Wayne Gretzky wasn’t the greatEST because he went to where the puck was.  

 

Often times, he went to where the puck was GOING TO BE.

 

He was ahead of the game and understood the flow.

 

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So what separates you from the great?  Where’s your ‘EST’ ?

 

Try something new. Be thought leaders.  It will happen!  Just because everyone’s going left, doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t be looking right.

 

http://www.toastedsnow.com/ann-tour.html

One of the main points of the world-renown book, Good To Great, by Jim Collins is the hedgehog principle:  

‘What can you be the best in the world at (and what you cannot be the best in the world at).  You may have a core competence in something, but you may not be the best in the world at it.  Do only what you can be the best in the world at.’

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Ad agencies get the big bucks for the big idea.  At the most basal level, this is their hedgehog, to create and deliver!   They are think tanks.  Nonetheless and all too often lately, we see ad agencies veering far away from their hedgehog.  

HEY, COME USE OUR STUDIO!
A primary example of this is the production studio. Retouching and prepress services require certain skill-sets that are be both valuable and profitable to the agency- and in many cases they are a necessity to deliver the end product of what the agency has created. So employing a studio for the internal agency fits nicely into their hedgehog.  However, we’re seeing agencies try to sell their studio services to other competing agencies with the ultimate goal of turning a larger profit.  The downside to this is the studio is a major ingredient in the agency’s proprietary brand essence, their thumbprint.  -And isn’t this also taxing to the valued internal resources of the agency?  

Collins explains that the hedgehog survives because it innately does one thing, and sticks to that one thing exceptionally well.  IT IS CONSISTENT, that’s why it succeeds.  

Agencies veering from their hedgehog seem to be an unfortunate trend.  There may be seemingly sound reasons detracting them from their core initiatives, but the proof is in the pudding.  An economy of scale is one thing, but this has time and time again proven to be a futile and costly exercise.

That's the INTRA-net, not the INTER-net.  Advertising Agencies have historically spent big dollars developing and maintaining their own intranets. These are the magical places where documents are stored (and hopefully retrieved), internal or industry news gets published, and repositories for ad campaigns are built… all for internal agency use only.

 

However, there are inherent problems with the traditional ad agency intranet model:

 

• WHERE’S BOB?!? Historically intranets are costly to maintain, both from a human resource and a dollar value perspective, as a web developer’s time is high-value and in high-demand.  So, are you really going to pull Bob off that 7-figure campaign to figure out why people whose names start with T can’t login after 5pm…
• WHOSE JOB WAS THAT ANYWAY? Often times, agency intranets end up being static places that contain outdated information and old news.  This happens because the updates and critical maintenance of these sites gets downgraded in priority due to billable work or altogether ignored. 
• SOCIAL MUCH?  The primary purpose of the intranet is to provide a centralized place to make the ad agency a more organized and cohesive.  It’s supposed to enhance the efficiency and culture of the agency- and 99% of the time these intranets lack social components that promote collaboration and sharing of ideas.  So, why would I be surfing my intranet when I have facebook and twitter to get the down-low?
• RUBE GOLDBERG MUCH? Typically ad agency intranets consist of a home page with links directing users to any variation of different tools.  This is a good idea, except these tools and technologies tend to be in silos, which means redundancy and confusion.  Some agencies have attempted to cobble their disparate intranet tools together with some software development- and we all know how this goes.  Why? Because agencies are not in the software development business.  They’re in the AD development business.

 

Bottom line is that advertising agencies love to be original, so almost always they’ve attempted build, develop and maintain their own company intranets.

 

It’s becoming apparent that now, more than ever that agencies need the right tools and technologies to be effective, efficient and to stay competitive- but building them in-house has been and will continue to be a failed-strategy.

 

So before you start pulling your developers off of big whale accounts and hacking up a Microsoft SharePoint instance, think again.  This probably isn’t the best use of your time… or Bob’s. 

It's official - Our Agency News Network App (web and mobile) made the 2011 Shorty Awards finals for best App (http://blog.shortyawards.com/post/3317356714/announcing-the-3rd-annual-shorty.... Needless to say we are very honored to be considered for this award. Many people always say it's an honor just to be nominated (bunch of crap?) – we really feel this way. Why? Well, last year a bunch of us went to the 2nd annual Shorty Awards (http//:shortyawards.com) and were thinking how cool it be if that was us next year. It seemed so far out reach - we were only a few months into development on our application and we had no idea how much work was ahead.

So fast forward 11 months; we've sold thousands of mobile Apps, 20,000 page views a month to our web App (http://www.agencynewsnetwork.com), 8000+ Twitter followers and have had over 10,000 views of our marketing videos on on YouTube Channel. Ok - it sounds like we're bragging - we're NOT. We have not moved the scale in the Agency world - but that's what the next 11 months are for;) Thanks to all our supporters and customers!

See you at the Shortys! (http://shortyawards.com/shorty_night)

 

http://www.toastedsnow.com

Another awards thing, another marketing ploy to toot one's horn. Well YES, and we need your vote. Toasted Snow's AgencyNews app for the web (ANN), iPhone and Droid are out and being used by thousands of marketing and agency professionals. Currently we have over 20,000 web page views, have sold over 3000 apps and we aren't even a year into our offering. The Private version of ANN for ad agencies will be shipping in Q2.

So we are asking the ad world (or anyone) for some support. The Shorty Awards are the Oscars of the real-time media (Twitter). If you have a twitter account that's active, please give our app a vote (in the apps category). We have included a step by step YouTube video to show you how to vote for a Shorty Award. Thanks to all who have used ANN and or purchased our Agency News app.

http://shortyawards.com/annDigest

Many of my advertising friends are early adopters of 'fun' technology. We wait in line for the new iPhone's, iPads etc. So when Apple released Apple TV2 we were first to pre-order it. Well now that we've spent a couple of weeks playing with it we've come to the conclusion that the 'brand' has taken over the quality of it's products. It's very disappointing to say the least. Many of us were concerned about the streaming buffer and we were spot on - it's sucks. The only good part of Apple TV is Netflix instant (and that's very good, not great). 

As soon as I hooked it up the Apple TV2 my iTunes account got hacked. I received several emails from Apple with a receipt for NCIS Season 8 season pass for $59.99. It took me over a week to get Apple to credit my account and even now many others are experiencing the issue. A few days ago I went to rent a TV show on Apple TV2 for ¢.99. After several attempts to login (nightmare after the iTunes security freeze from the hack) I successfully made the rental. The clock wheel started spinning and the calculation stated my rental would be ready to watch in 168 minutes. After waiting and waiting and watching the time go from 150 minutes down 56 minutes back up to 110 minutes I gave up. The following day I went to see if I could watch my rental and the entire process started again. Some 2 hours later I called Apple on my iPhone (another rant - see below). I spoke to an Apple technician and all he wanted was my serial number. I told him to look it up - I purchased it via the Apple Store online and he should be able to get it with all those fancy computer networks available to him;)

He quickly tried to blame my network; I quickly told him that Netflix streamed instantly, so it was iTunes not my network. Are you ready for this one? He said (and I quote), "Netflix uses different technology." YES! I know - it uses streaming technology that works. So I asked what I should do. Before he could answer, my iPhone dropped the call (no joke). Droid is now out selling the iPhone and Google TV is about to release. Hey Steve - wake up and make sure your new products deliver or even Apple can take a hit. BTW - many of my agency friends work a TBWA (Apple's ad agency of record - LOL).

After only the first 10 days of our Agency News iPhone app release we are featured on Apple's iTunes What's Hot list. So far we've exceeded our first month's goals and have been excited to see the Agency News app being purchased in over 20 countries. We are gearing up for several new features for both the app and the Agency News Network website. 

We have received a lot of excellent feedback emails from our customers - please write a positive review on iTunes if you have had a good experience. To buy our Agency News iPhone app go to: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/agencynews/id377972224?mt=8

To check out the site [hundreds of Agency News sources] go to: http://www.agencynewsnetwork.com

We had several meetings today with various agencies around New York City to present the Agency News Network. We were early for our meeting at Omnicom Group and decided to sit in one of the alley picnic areas in midtown. It was a perfect 76 degrees with zero humidity. After a few minutes of checking email on my new iPhone 4 I received the 'iphone 4 temperature warning'  error (see attached photo)

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http://www.agencynewsnetwork.com