In advertising bigger is only one thing, bigger.

Over the weekend Publicis and Omnicom announced their intention to merge. Of course the public statements were all about improving client service, the creative product and overall effectiveness of their work. There is, however, really only one thing this merger is about:

Money.

Not to be too cynical, but the benefits to the clients in this are few and far between. Maybe somewhere there's a big data angle here to help the new company better compete with Google, but even the clients don't expect much to change. Anheuser-Bush InvBev VP of Marketing, Paul Chibe was quoted in Ad Age as saying, "It doesn't change anything."

So this larger holding company will gain efficiencies in back room operations, be able to consolidate some real estate, and probably jettison a few thousand newly redundant staff members making it less costly to produce the same amount of work. All reasonable business moves.

I can guarantee you, however, the monetary gains from increased efficiency won't result in lower rates charged to clients.

I'd love to be Maurice Levy's real estate agent today...

Men's Wearhouse makes a mistake

Yesterday, Men's Wearhouse announced the firing of their founder, Executive Chairman and spokesman of 30 years, George Zimmer.

Sales were up 5.1% the last quarter. 

Sales were up 4.4% for the calendar year 2012.

Profits were up over 10% to $2.55 per share.

Those are numbers JC Penney, Sears or Kmart would kill for.

So why did he get fired?

Richard Jaffe, an financial analyst thinks it might be the advertising.

“They continually rework it, adjusting how much presence do we have on George. Does he stand? Does he sit? But it’s always all about George Zimmer — his voice, his physical presence. An old guy with a gray beard may not provide credibility to the product in the eyes of a 22- or 24-year-old.”

If he's right, then the board at Men's Wearhouse is wrong.

Yes, George Zimmer is older than his target, but that doesn't mean he can't connect with them. In fact, based on the performance of the company it looks like he has.

There have been a lot of spokespeople who managed to connect with an audience that didn't look like them. Dos Equis' most interesting man in the world comes immediately to mind. Dave Thomas sold a lot of burgers to 20-somethings. Frank Purdue was the tough man who sold tender chickens to millions of moms.

If being old means you can't sell to younger audiences, The Rolling Stones would be in wheel chairs instead of on tour.

It's not about age, it's about attitude and relevance.

At a time when more and more men are dressing like boys, George Zimmer was that voice that told guys, when you're ready to be taken seriously we're here to help.

It worked.

It worked because he is authentic. It worked because he is honest. It worked because he projects the right combination of authority, empathy and confidence.

Thanks to the board's decision, we're in for a long run of one-off ads while the Men's Wearhouse searches to find a voice as effective as that of Mr. Zimmer.

I guarantee it.

Show us the money, please

Advertising is a game rigged in the clients' favor. They're the house and we're the marks.

They want pay-for-performance. Contracts always have a 90-day out clause. We work nights and weekends because the client will "know it when he sees it." And even when the work does produce results, that's still no guarantee we won't get fired.

Yet even as clients profess to want an agency that's a "partner," they go and do something like this...

I know that agencies aren't perfect. I know they sometimes miss the strategic mark. And when they produce ads like Innocean did for Hyundai, they deserve to be fired.

But I know one thing agencies aren't.

A bank.

P&G, InBev and the other corporate behemoths are stretching payments out 75, 90 and even 120 days to make more money with "their" money. In the meantime, agencies need to dip into cash reserves or borrow more money to make payroll and pay suppliers.

As an industry we're happy to give you are hearts, our souls, and even at times our dignity. The least you can do is pay us on time.

JCP is not Apple

When JC Penney went looking for someone to take over the reins of the venerable but struggling retailer, Ron Johnson seemed like the perfect savior. After all, oversaw the creation of the wildly successful Apple Stores. How could he not succeed at JCP?

Let's start with the fact that JCP doesn't sell iMacs, iBooks, iPhones, iPads and iPods. They sell Levis, Nike, Liz Claiborne, Disney, Cuisinart and Keurig.

Apple Stores were built to be the best place to buy the hottest products in the world.

JCP sells the same products as Kohl's, Target, Boston Stores, Macy's and WalMart.

Apple Stores have "Geniuses" who can help customers select the right products and provide expertise on how to use them.

JCP employees know how to use the cash register. 

I have no idea why I'd choose JCP over any of the other options I have to buy my 501s.

Consequently after just 17 months, Johnson is out as CEO of JCP and the strategies that made Apple stores successful are being replaced with sales, specials and other traditional retail tactics. 

In hindsight it is obvious that what worked for Apple wasn't going to work for JC Penney, because your marketing strategy is only as good as the products you're selling.

CBS can't stop progress

CNET, the powerhouse digital publication for all things tech, released its "Best of CES" last week and one of the nominees was the Dish Hopper with Sling, the auto ad-skipping DVR from Dish Network... until it wasn't.

If you visit their Nominee Page now and scroll down to the very bottom you get this statement:

The Dish Hopper with Sling was removed from consideration due to active litigation involving our parent company CBS Corp. We will no longer be reviewing products manufactured by companies with which we are in litigation with respect to such product.

If anyone ever wondered about the impartiality of the press, wonder no more.

Clearly someone at CBS said to the publisher of CNET, "Hey, these guys are trying to break our business model. You can't give them an award." And the publisher of CNET, liking his job very much, said "No problem."

By making CNET pull its nomination, CBS is now allowing the Hopper to play a role in the erosion of two of its businesses. Not only is the Hopper a threat to the ad-supported revenue model the network was built on, but its sudden exclusion from the Best of CES list brings into question the most important asset CNET has, its editorial integrity.

Millions of people have trusted CNET for what was believed to be impartial reviews of technological gadgetry. I used it last week when deciding which new television to buy. Yet, if its editorial independence can be so easily undermined by those on the business side of the publication, how can anyone trust anything they write?

CBS needs to stop trying to make time stand still and begin to create a new reality in which traditional advertising and appointment viewing are no longer the be-all-and-end-all of network television. Pulling petty, vindictive stunts like this hurts their brands much more than it will slow the advance of technology that is coming whether they like it or not.

Is Chevrolet on the road again?

There's trouble in the Commonwealth today.

Though the folks at GM are denying it, moving the launch of the Chevy Silverado from Chevrolet's lead agency created by ex Director of Marketing Joel Ewanick, to Leo Burnett is a very big deal.

Commonwealth was created as a joint venture between Goodby Chevy's domestic ad agency, and McCann which had been doing a lot of international work for GM. The thought being that together they could handle the the heavy workload of all the new vehicle launches coming for Chevy effectively and efficiently.

Well, it would be hard to find a more important vehicle in a more competitive category launching in the next couple of years from GM. The Silverado is a huge money maker for GM, delivering about $12,000 per vehicle in profit.

What this says to me is that GM doesn't trust Commonwealth.

And when the client doesn't trust the agency. It's over.

I hope I'm wrong, because more uncertainty in the marketing is not what GM needs right now. Jeff Goodby and Nick Brien need to take this seriously and figure out what's wrong with the relationship or there won't be one much longer.

How to choose an ad agency

The advertising pitch process has always been a bit of a farce.

Clients are never willing to divulge all the information agencies need to deliver effective work.

Agencies throw their all-stars at the business regardless of whether they'll end up working on it should they win.

The creative brief is generally written without direct client input and approval.

Timelines are tight. Research is limited. The creative work presented is rarely the work that ends up on the air after the account is awarded.

While each agency may have their own proprietary process for branding, planning or whichever part of the business they feel is most important, the only real difference between the competitors is the team in the room.

And now clients are turning to electronic auctions to determine the ultimate winner based on how little they're willing to charge for their services. According to Ad Age, the practice of pitting pitch finalists against each other to see how low they will go is a growing trend. 

I'm not surprised.

Agencies have only four ways to differentiate themselves: experience, talent, service and point of view. It's hard to determine the relative value of any of those in a traditional pitch.

So what's the best way to choose an agency?

Work together.

Start with three agencies that you know can do the work based on their credentials, experience and any other criteria you feel is important for your business.

Assign each a similar project (don't make them compete for the same one), work with them as if they are agency of record, and pay them for their work. 

Use your normal process. Hold all the meetings you typically hold. Do the research you always do. Treat each as if they're your partner because for the length of their project, they are. Make sure the projects are complete and equal in terms of services used and deliverables required. Take the projects all the way through production.

Will this process take longer than a typical six-week pitch? Probably. But because the agencies are completing projects you would have had to execute anyway, it should cost your company no more than a typical pitch.

And in the end you'll know how each agency really thinks, how they work, how well they deliver on their promises, and how much it costs to work with them. You'll also have work you can run to see how it impacts the marketplace.

Is it a perfect process? No. Is it better than choosing the low bidder? No doubt.

Attitude drives innovation

You might have conference rooms with the best chairs and the latest technology.

You might have an intranet that connects your workforce worldwide.

You might have 'proven' processes.

If the leaders in your organization don't value and encourage collaboration, however, your innovation efforts will struggle.

Innovation requires open minds. It requires people who are more concerned with getting it right than getting ahead. It requires a mindset that believes the experts may not have all the answers.

How do entrepreneurs find success in today's economy while some of our biggest and best known companies struggle? Simple.

They know that attitude is more important than tools.

Time waits for no network

The problem with ignoring reality is that it has a way of coming back to bite you in the ass.

Just ask NBC.

In order to try to garner the highest ratings and maximize ad revenue, NBC is recording, editing and packaging the premier events – Gymnastics, Swimming, Diving etc. – then showing them in prime time as if they're happening live.

Which yields classic moments like this...

Yesterday evening NBC aired a Today show promo for an exclusive interview with "gold medal winning swimmer Missy Franklin" before, if you believe their coverage, her race occured.

Oops.

You can't have it both ways. Especially in today's world.

With multiple networks all showing live action throughout the day, it would be best broadcast the marquis events in real time (rather than a women's handball game between Korea and the Netherlands), then acknowledge the truth and create the best damn Olympics recap show every evening instead of acting as if the events being shown are somehow going on in the middle of the night in London.

Had they done it, they may not have suffered the embarrassment of the botched promo and hilarious twitter feed #NBCdelayed.

JC Penney hits the wall

So JC Penney found out what other retailers have known all along. When you sell the same things as everyone else and you can't provide superior service, price matters.

After 3 months of stylishly promoting their subtle version of a monthly sale...



They're admitting defeat.

"No one really understood [month-long value]. What we intend to do is a sale; we run 12 a year," JC Penney CEO Ron Johnson is quoted as saying in Advertising Age.

But changing the words from "month long value" to "sale" won't turn around their fortunes. There are already at least three entrenched competitors that consumers look to for low prices, Walmart, Target and Kohl's.

Making their sales events a month long and promoting them less won't suddenly have consumers breaking down the doors. Retail is a now business. If the advertising doesn't make the cash register ring on the first weekend of the month, it won't magically become effective on the last.

What they really need is something to differentiate themselves beyond mere marketing. And that won't be easy.

Just ask Sears.

ABC pays tribute to Apple and fails

Marla Provencio, Chief Marketing Officer for ABC, calls her new promo for the show Duets an "homage." I'd call it something else, but this is a family blog...



It features lousy acting, terrible direction, unwatchable cinematography, inane music and a stolen idea. So it's just like everything else on ABC.

I have news for Ms. Provencio. This isn't an homage. It's not even a parody. It's just dumb.

The only good thing about it is, I now have an excuse to watch the original Apple 1984 spot one more time.

The price of choice

Wendy's, a company that had been on a roll, recently passing Burger King for the #2 spot in Hamburgerdom, has hit a bump in the road. It seems that sales are a little sluggish growing only one percent in the first quarter, while McDonald's posted gains of almost nine percent.

What went wrong?

Like a lot of marketers they made the mistake of thinking that if some choice was good, more would be better.

Specifically, they created a new burger for their menu called the W, a mid-priced offering created to get carnivores to trade up from a 99¢ value menu burger to something a little more substantial, thus increasing sales and profits.

What it did was the exact opposite.

Not seeing a difference between the W and their regular offerings, people traded down. So while unit sales remained essentially unchanged, dollar sales decreased.

Offering options to your customers isn't necessarily a bad thing. But it is if they can't differentiate between those choices. And don't count on advertising to make it clear to them.

If the products aren't obviously different at the point of sale, price wins.

Why Chevy's new agency arrangement will work

Last week GM, IPG and Omnicom announced the formation of Commonwealth, an historic new structure for the advertising business for Chevrolet.

This is the first time two major agencies (McCann and Goodby) from different holding companies will share a global account and many are predicting nothing but trouble for two good reasons: greed and ego.

There are a lot of greedy and egotistical people in the ad business and for this reason, many are predicting subterfuge and shenanigans to abound with each agency throwing the other under the proverbial bus at every opportunity.

But here's why it will work: greed and ego.

Yes, right now they're all speaking in humble tones: "We're doing it for the team," "We have the client's best interest at heart," "We're so honored to be working with each other," blah, blah, blah...

In reality this arrangement will work because the leaders of both agencies know that 50% of $3 billion is better than 100% of $0. Both agencies know they don't have the resources to handle the business alone.

This will work because Joel Ewanick, Jeff Goodby and Nick Brien have healthy egos and pride themselves on doing what others tell them can't be done. Goodby will push McCann and McCann will push Goodby and Ewanick will push both making sure he gets the results GM needs from this partnership.

Greed and ego aren't necessarily bad things. In fact, you can't run a successful business without them. Ego is what keeps agencies from doing mediocre work, and greed is what makes sure they do it profitably.

It's when greed and ego get out of control – as was the case with all those brainiacs in the financial sector – that their effect becomes toxic.

Here's to hoping that doesn't happen in adland.

We're not that "Mad"

In honor of the return of MadMen and the debut of their new show "The Pitch" I'm reposting this piece from last July. Enjoy. 

AMC, the network that brought you "MadMen," wants to bring you a more modern view of the craft of advertising this fall with a new show called, "The Pitch."

The basic premise is this. An advertiser – they already have Kodak and Yahoo! signed up – gives two or three real ad agencies a chance to put together a pitch for real project assignment, all while being documented by video crews for the 10 days between the briefing and the pitch. The winning agency gets to execute their campaign and earns the revenue from the project. The losing agencies get nothing.

Not surprisingly, the producers of the show are having trouble getting agencies to participate.

New business pitches have been a part of advertising as long as there's been advertising. Clients are smart enough to know that they own the power in the relationship and often pit agencies against each other to see who has the best ideas, which team has the best chemistry, and who will give it to them cheaper. Even in private, its a grueling and demeaning process.

Aside from the fact that the show is asking the losing agencies to give the client their ideas for free, to commit significant resources to this pitch, and bring an even more unnatural element into an already unnatural process. It also exposes one of the industry's dirty little secrets...

There IS NO DIFFERENCE between agencies.

Every agency claims to have:

• A "Proprietary Process" for coming up with great ideas.
• A model for branding that will reveal your brand's true power.
• A research methodology that will uncover incredible insights that no other agency can possibly duplicate.
• A secret algorithm for effective media buying.
• An integrated system that leverages all campaign elements to maximize impact.
• A team of all-stars that you won't find anywhere else.

If any agency goes on the show it will make it clear to the world that J. Walter is just like Ogilvy. That Goodby isn't any different from Wieden. That Grey and Strawberry Frog have more in common than their names would suggest. And that would be bad for business.

As a friend of mine used to say as he was ready to jump ship to yet another agency in an effort to forward his career, "Same circus. Different clowns."

Oh, and if the producers are hoping to find alcohol fueled rages, office sex scandals, and a client getting his foot severed by a riding lawn mower, I hate to disappoint them, but that stuff went out with the '60s.

Is Arby's future Burger King's present?

Yesterday it as reported that Wendy's passed Burger King as the second largest hamburger chain in the U.S. in annual sales – $8.5 billion versus $8.4 billion – even though Burger King has 1,500 more stores.

What does this have to do with the future of Arby's?

Recently Arby's hired Burger King's former marketing director, Russ Klein. He promptly fired BBDO, the advertising agency who's work contributed to five consecutive quarters of growth for Arby's.

With whom did he replace BBDO? CP+B, his former agency Burger King. They were fired after his departure and six consecutive quarters of declining sales.

If the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results, then Arby's executive team needs to spend some time on the couch.

Klein in talking about his decision to Adweek Magazine says. "CP+B is the most decorated agency of the last 10 years."

That's great. Awards are nice, but the true value of an agency/client partnership must be measured at the cash register. Subservient Chicken got a lot of views and praise from the ad industry, but how many chicken sandwiches did it sell? The Whopper Lust campaign got press, but giving away your signature product for free is not a recipe for profitability.



I realize that marketing isn't the only contributing factor in Burger King's decline, but unless Klein and CP+B are more disciplined strategically and focus on the things that truly drive business instead of clever but irrelevant marketing tactics, why should we believe the result of their partnership will be any different.

Grow smart

There are two dimensions to growth: proficiency and expansion.

Do the same thing over and over again and you'll become more proficient at it.

Do something different on a regular basis and you'll expand your knowledge and skills.

Most companies – and people – must do both. The trick is not to expand before you gain proficiency.

A specialized expert is more valuable then a mediocre generalist.