Agency of the Year

Agency of the Year

Any ad agency will tell you the loss of a lucrative account is like a punch in the gut. Losing your founding client — that’s devastating. But that’s precisely what happened to McGarryBowen in 2007 when Verizon whittled its ad agency roster from 38 agencies to eight. The marketer’s move eliminated shops not linked to the biggest chunk of what was then a $1.2 billion and growing marketing budget: wireless.

So what did John McGarry do? He took his former client to lunch.

“He is a class act and consummate professional,” said Verizon’s exec VP-chief marketing officer, John Stratton, of Mr. McGarry, who is renowned in the business as the epitome of the courtly, old-school account man. “He worked for two and half years to maintain the relationship, despite what were probably hard feelings. … John really understands how to manage relationships well. It’s not overbearing, but he doesn’t fall off the radar screen long enough that you forget about him and his company.”

Best TV Spots

Sure, the future is here and it’s all about integration and digital and social media and yadda yadda yadda. But we still have a soft spot for the traditional spot. Here is Creativity’s best of the decade.

Cadbury “Gorilla”
Agency: Fallon, London
Director: Juan Cabral

No swirling fabrics, no dreamy ladies, no satisfied young snackers, no … chocolate. “Gorilla” didn’t contain the same ingredients as many chocolate ads before it. Instead, it contained a grape purple backdrop, a gorilla, a set of drums and a few key moments from a monster ’80s track. When it debuted in 2007, “Gorilla” engendered a fierce debate amongst industry types about what exactly has become of advertising. To fans — and fans were many: The ad has been viewed more than 4 million times on YouTube, inspired a host of tributes and captured the Film Grand Prix at Cannes — it was an exemplar of the new branded storytelling. Detractors, of course, asked what any of it had to do with chocolate. Fallon’s Juan Cabral (author of Sony “Balls”), who wrote and directed the spot, answers the question “Why?” simply: “It kind of makes sense to be honest. It’s a very powerful drum solo. So a gorilla has to play it.”

Starbucks Rings in the Holidays

… With Big Social-Media Push

Get ready for Starbucks Holiday 2.0. The brand is going big in social media this year, having learned that its consumers want to participate in a variety of ways. So Starbucks is pulling back from its Thanksgiving TV buys of the past two years to focus on where its customers already spend time online and drive them into stores.

Starbucks is spreading the love around, advertising on websites from NYTimes.com to Meebo; partnering with Pandora to offer branded holiday playlists; and encouraging participation in social and owned media to get consumers in the holiday spirit. The chain is continuing its partnership with Red, launched last Thanksgiving, by offering a free “All You Need Is Love” CD, with tracks from U2, John Legend and the Dave Matthews Band, when consumers spend $15. Additionally, Starbucks will give $1 to fight AIDS in Africa. There are also a variety of holiday-themed “Red” products for which Starbucks will also make the $1 donation with a customer purchase. This represents a stepped-up version of last year’s offer, which was a five-cent donation made when consumers bought a holiday beverage such as a peppermint mocha.

General Motors Co.’s Cadillac

… has cut the list of semi-finalists vying for the brand’s national creative account in half.

The shops moving to the next round are two Publicis Groupe shops: Bartle Bogle Hegarty, New York, and Publicis, New York; along with Interpublic Group of Cos.’ Martin Agency, Richmond, Va. Eliminated are Omnicom Group’s DDB, Chicago; Interpublic’s Gotham and independent McKinney, Durham, N.C. Cadillac confirmed that list.

The holidays will be a frenetic time for the finalists to put together their presentations, as the marketer has said it will hear pitches in January. A decision is expected soon afterward.

Prior experience
The three finalists have experience dealing with car brands.

Bartle Bogle was a finalist in Audi of America’s review in 2006. The agency’s London office handles Audi in the U.K., which created this TV spot for the Q5 early this year. In the Audi of America review, the agency pitched against incumbent McKinney, which had held the account from 1993 to 2006. The account is now with Venables, Bell & Partners.

Why Digital Agencies Are Indeed Ready to Lead

Over the past 18 months, a great debate has consumed our industry: Are digital agencies poised to sit at the head of the advertising table? Depending on whom you ask and what you read, the answer seems to flip flop

- with a majority of people still having reservations and making claims that digital agencies aren’t ready to lead.

So why does the debate continue? Does offline or online really matter to an oblivious consumer who’s only interested in “no-line” communications? Are we spending too much time focusing on who should lead and not enough asking: What’s next?

Aussies’ Favorite Brands

… From Google to Vegemite

Australians Google any and everything. They’re glued to their Nokias, chuck a chicken on the barbie, indulge with Tim Tams and everyone has the hots for Hugh. Breast cancer has the strongest pull on their heartstrings, while Apple and Wii keep Australians constantly amused.

These are among the top brands in Australia according to the 2009 Brand Asset Valuator (BAV), a study conducted by George Patterson Y&R every three years. The latest BAV study examined 1,200 brands covering 139 different categories. More than 4,000 Australian consumers were surveyed online as part the WPP agency’s database of consumer perceptions of brands.

Faces of Facebook – Steve Rubel

Digital Communications…

I spend a lot of time gazing into a crystal ball that I know is going to be cloudy half the time. Lately I have been pondering Facebook’s future.

Facebook is clearly on a roll and is knocking on Google’s door as the biggest site on the web. Will it continue to dominate or see its lead slip? Here are two potential outcomes.

The Google Scenario: In the more rosy picture, Facebook remains the disrupter. It transforms how we use the web.

Just as search changed our expectations that everything we want to know is accessible if we Google it, Facebook is the inverse. If information is important, it will find us through our friends and their friends and so on. We don’t have to Google it.

Rocker’s Music Video

… Helps Unemployed Find Jobs

Ryan Star knows a thing or two about being unemployed — but what he didn’t know was that he’d create a new model for music marketing.

The rangy rocker is working on an album release, has a reality TV show under his belt and just wrapped up about a half-year gig as the opening act for “American Idol’s” David Cook, but the memory of being without a job is still fresh. “I’ve been there, living on girlfriend’s couches,” said Mr. Star, munching on a green apple while sprawled across a chair in a living room of another sort — a lounge area in the office of his label, Atlantic Records. “I know what it is like to be down and have nothing and now I can reach out a hand to help.”

Digital Advertising

Digital Advertising!

Oct. 27 marks the 15th anniversary of the industry’s first banner display ads, which appeared on Hotwired.com. To the many of you reading this who weren’t in the business back then, that’s not a typo; I’m not referring to www.HotWire.com, the travel site, but HotWired — the first commercial digital magazine on the web and the offshoot of Wired magazine.

For us, it started with a speech. It was May 1994, and Ed Artzt, the chairman of P&G at the time, made his landmark speech at the 4A’s meeting in White Sulphur Springs, WV calling for marketers and their agencies to dive headlong into the “new media” revolution or be left behind.

My boss and mentor Bob Schmetterer, president of Messner Vetere Berger McNamee Schmetterer (MVBMS), a unit of Euro RSCG, was in that audience and he was totally energized by Artzt’s challenge. It’s important to note that our largest account at the time was MCI, which employed Vinton Cerf — the “Father of the Internet” — as VP-data services.

Vote for Ad Age’s 2009 Marketer of the Year

The Candidates: Amazon, Hyundai, Lego, McDonald’s, Walmart

Each year, Ad Age awards one top marketer judged to outperform the rest. The past two years, we left the choice up to senior marketing executives, but this year, dear reader, we are turning this important decision over to you.

Ad Age’s editors and reporters have done the spadework, narrowing the list of choices to five marketers we deemed most adept at navigating what — to understate — has been a tough year. The selection will be interesting, since each of these companies handles its brand in different ways and each suggests a different way ahead for the art and science of marketing in a time of great flux. It’s up to you to tell us which you think has been most successful in 2009, worthy of joining recent Ad Age winners such as the Obama campaign (2008), Apple (2007) and Toyota (2006). Voting ends Wednesday, Oct. 21, and the victor will be announced in the Nov. 9 issue.