Troubled Times in AdLand: Do Agency Layoffs Signal Industry Turbulence or Opportunity?

Less than a month after FleishmanHillard’s well-publicized (and pricey) rebranding –

an effort to preempt massive changes in the communications industry by demonstrating transparency, nimbleness and multichannel marketing – it looks as if at least one canary in the proverbial coal mine has become woozy.

Actually, make that two or three, depending on your math.

In what seems to be a very prominent and permanent trend (just read this Harvard Business Review article about the demise of the traditional ad agency if you don’t believe me), Omnicom Group, the world’s top media holding company, has faced a challenging few weeks as two of its subsidiary agencies announced widespread layoffs following the loss of major client accounts. P&G’s Gillette products division ended its 80-year relationship with BBDO and General Motors Chevy business severed ties with Goodby Silverstein & Partners. GSP also lost its Nintendo account amid additional client spending cuts. According to at least one person, BBDO could ax up to 10% of its US workforce.

Not good news for ad land.

While details of the brands’ cutbacks are not entirely clear, what little has been said speaks volumes about where the communications industry is heading. Think about it: P&G didn’t come to this decision lightly – severing an 80-year partnership doesn’t happen overnight. And it took 7 months for the brand to switch over to arch-enemy agency Grey, part of the Grey Group division of WPP.  An ambiguous statement from P&G released in April summarized their reasoning for the review was: “to generate fresh thinking and uncover new approaches to connecting with men.” Of course it was.

Fresh thinking and uncovering new approaches is what agencies get paid for. If your agency of record can’t deliver on those two points then any partnership will falter. Although it lacks details, the P&G statement is a damning indictment of a $1.47 billion communications agency that was once the creative engine behind Gillette’s 1989 slogan: “the best a man can get.”

GSP’s situation isn’t any better except to say that the company’s founder, Jeff Goodby, sympathetically addressed the human side of layoffs in an internal memo obtained by AdAge.

“Please be assured: No one takes this process lightly… We will do everything to find [those who have been let go] new situations. And if history is any indication, we will find ourselves welcoming some of them back in the future,” Goodby wrote.

Thanks for the encouraging words but none of that will come to pass if agencies of all sizes (ours included) don’t take a very long, hard look at their client relationships and determine whether they are healthy and spry or if they’re functioning on inertia and complacency – not a winning combination.

The lines between earned media, paid media and the marketing channels they’re promoted on continue to blur. In 5 years time I predict that there’ll be no delineation between digital, social or PR agency – if we aren’t able to provide these services to our clients, we’ll be toast.

So it’s incumbent on all of us as public relations and marcomm professionals to keep the client-agency dialogue fresh, insightful and current. That means staying up on the latest social media trends, voraciously consuming industry and client-specific news, spotting new movements and being ready to adjust marketing tactics once old leanings shift course. It means helping guide our clients through new territories and murky waters. And it means taking bold risks and telling them how it is, not how they want to hear it. It means being honest and offering solutions to problems they may not see coming – but we do.

Omnicom’s brand wounds aren’t fatal. As of this writing, OMC’s stock is up 24.1% for the year and US advertising agency revenue was up 5.6% in 2012. But all it takes is the slightest drop in fresh air before a real coal-mine canary becomes ill.

Will BBDO, GSP and other agencies appreciate these layoff warning signs for what they are and take corrective steps? In this business an 80-year relationship is unheard of – a guarantor of rock-solid success. If those professional bonds can be broken, then really, anything is up for grabs. 

Unleashing Your Brand Advocate Weapon, Consumer-Generated PR

Every so often I read an article or blog post that cuts through the digital clutter and states something intuitive, but not entirely obvious.

An article in The Next Web by Henriette Weber gave me my week’s “ah-ha” moment so kudos to her. Happy Friday!

As a PR professional I speak (and write) frequently about the need for content generation. Whether through social media, blogs, original thought leadership articles, client interviews and tweets, feeding the content beast is a never-ending assignment. And as we expand our client list, the beast grows hungrier still. Brands, too, face similar challenges. The larger they become the more they have to write about their expanding enterprise. According to Rob Fuggetta, founder and CEO of Zuberance and author of Brand Advocates: Turning Enthusiastic Customers into a Powerful Marketing Force (citing his own sources), 28%-33% of marketing budgets goes toward content marketing.

Brand advocates, as Fuggetta rightly argues, can become a brand’s most important and cost-effective weapon. How? True, brand advocates work for free and do some of the heavy lifting for you. But too often marketers today think of their brand advocates as people who require expensive loyalty program catering. Or that outsourced IT teams must design highly engaging gamified portals. While all of these techniques are a legitimate form of marketing and customer nurturing outreach, it’s important that technological wizardry doesn’t trump the fostering of genuine experiences – or obfuscate brand failures.

I’ve written about a number of my genuine brand experiences and so have several ThinkInkers (Honda, BlackBerry, etc). I was once a BlackBerry diehard, eager to defend against all naysayers. Even after I made my bittersweet goodbyes, it wasn’t until I received an absurdly belated email asking for my returned business (nearly a year after I left) did I fully renounce my brand advocacy badge. But I’ve also received personalized emails of late, actual handwritten letters and, yes, even sample perfume from other companies.

None of these outreach methods are expensive. In fact, they’re right in line with what traditional customer retention budgets go toward. But unlike in decades past, where I might have only told a select few people about my positive experiences, via phone or word-of-mouth, I’ve freely given brands hundreds of words of free online publicity. Do I expect something magnanimous from them like a Birkin handbag or a Cable Heart Chain Necklace in return? Absolutely not – only that they empower me with the brand advocacy tools I require. And yes, I would appreciate an engaging loyalty program too. But that’s not what I’m looking for first and brands need to remember that.

Instead of brands banging their proverbial heads against walls trying to figure out what to write and how to afford the effort, why not empower brand advocates to blog, vlog, tweet and post about their most positive brand experiences? Of course, you’ll still need a professional staff to vet and review copy. But if properly engaged there’s a literal army out there of consumers looking to continue your brand’s unique conversation across multiple channels.

And I’m one of your loyal foot soldiers – armed and ready to serve.

Are you a brand advocate? If so, what about the brand inspires your spreading their good word and how do you do it? Share your thoughts with the ThinkInk community in the section below.

Fantastic Collaboration?! Maybe Giving Up the F-Word Would Have Been Easier Than Ditching the C-Word?

Ahh, C-words and F-words. What a lovely way to start a Thursday blog. But considering the disturbing news week with bombings, poisoned letters and a fertilizer plant explosion, perhaps it’s the perfect time to write a follow-up on these lovely gems of the English language.

In February of this year, ThinkInk launched an experiment: could we, as a company, strike (or reduce to a minimum) usage of the word ‘client’ from our copy –especially if its usage was meant to devalue, demean or unfairly generalize the men and women who literally pay our bills and salaries.

Like ex-smokers in the throes of nicotine withdrawal, cutting back on our C-word count proved anything but easy. And, as many ex-smokers do, often we traded one harmful choice for another. Rather than using phrases like “client needs,” or blaming an entire organization for some creativity failure, we instead went the other route, overly personalizing our frustrations and directing that anger toward individuals. In some instances, we adopted new C-words or “curmudgeonly” when speaking about clients.

Curious to learn more, I also reviewed my inbox, searching for C-word references. Let’s just say the results caused an F-word or two to slip out. In dispassionate computer speak, Microsoft Outlook kindly informed me, “Your search returned a large number of results. Narrow your search, or click here to view all results.”

Thank you, Outlook. Granted, some of my staff have titles that include the word “client,” which of course skewed the results. But even an email I sent earlier this week was peppered with our favorite C-word.

Clearly we could have done better.

Perhaps it was the flaws in our original parameters that led to our flawed results. After all, client isn’t a bad word. It’s just how we use it that can hurt. The same goes with personalizing attacks. While it’s OK to disagree and disagree vehemently with our CLIENTS, it’s not OK to treat them with fuses so short that any minor tangle causes an explosion.

Think about how much more slack we give our friends. Do we want to call them F-words and C-words at times? Absolutely. Yet we don’t, because we know there’s a friendship at stake; there’s surge capacity inside all parties to absorb shocks and arguments. So we shrug our shoulders and move on.

Clients aren’t our friends. They’re business partners, cultivated over mostly successful PR results. They wouldn’t be clients, otherwise. But their feelings can be hurt just like anyone else’s. The reality is, if I’m finding a client conversation difficult, it’s likely they’re finding the situation challenging as well. Neither of us is happy.

So before we reach for an arsenal of C-words, F-words, expletives and snarky nicknames, let’s tweak our experiment. “Client” is back in play at ThinkInk but client-bashing remains off limits. Take a deep breath. Count to a thousand, eat a sandwich and channel your peeves into passion – steadfastly solving problems and finding solutions – don’t whine about them.

That way, we can all celebrate another F-C combination: Fantastic Collaboration. Three cheers for that!!!

When it comes to successful PR, those are words we should all be proud to say.

Facebook Flatlining? My Prognostications for the Social Networking Behemoth

It might still be the world’s second-most-popular website with 700,000,000 unique monthly visitors – behind Google’s 900,000,000. But, as history has taught us, it’s usually when you’re flirting with the top that the bottom drops out.

And when it comes to Facebook’s dominance, the digital Visigoths are amassing on the web’s virtual borders.

Who are these digital invaders? An expanding list of mobile messaging apps like Kik, GeeVee and WhatsApp, among others, that are growing increasingly popular with tweens and Millennials. Kik, for instance, launched in 2010, now boasts 40 million users, GeeVee has quietly amassed several million users since 2011 while WhatsApp recently became Canada’s top paid downloaded iPhone app. Once Facebook’s most coveted demographic, the 15-25 age group is starting to bypass the originally built-for-desktop/laptop site, calling the website decidedly un-cool. Does Facebook think that its “F-phone” might stop the bleeding?

Even in our age of instant communication, it’s amazing how fast the conversation has shifted. Just last spring media outlets were writing about the time when Facebook would reach the billion-member mark. The early call was for last August. Instead the feat was achieved in October. Not bad for a nine-year-old company.

Fast-forward six months and now a Google news search returns dozens of articles hinting at what I think will be inevitable, the flat-lining of Facebook. Even with an encouraging Q4 earnings – revenue was up 40% from a year ago – the stock is down 1.4% and profit margins have narrowed sharply as spending increases. To me, this sounds like an engine being pushed to its limits – running hard and fast until breakdown. In other words, Facebook’s present business model is not sustainable.

As with many other great empires, Rome’s final downfall might have come from without – the real Visigoths, a Germanic tribe, conquered it in 410 AD – but the beginning of its end came from within. Facebook has become too big and its autocratic intrusion on our privacy, culminating in a $15 billion class action lawsuit, bears ironic resemblance to any super state’s trampling of peoples’ rights.

Another shortcoming: the digital soapbox that Facebook became, with people collecting fake friends like poker chips, may finally be coming to an end. Maybe we’ve all just moved on and the cultural pendulum is swinging back to a desire for smaller groups of actual friends. You know, people you might actually meet in person and actually know, not just “like.” Apps like Kik, GeeVee and WhatsApp are also great for young users as they avoid cell phone data network charges and it’s a little harder for hovering “helicopter parents” to join social messaging apps. And forget about prospective employers snooping around too.

That said, it’s not as if Facebook is going to unfriend itself anytime soon. A recent Reuters article is right to point out that the many Millennials turning to this new breed of mobile messaging apps haven’t abandoned Facebook – yet. But the true canary in the coal mine will be tracking how their usage patterns change in the coming months and years. And you can be sure Facebook is well equipped with its prodigious metrics-gathering ability to learn its fate long before it’s sealed.

Even then, though, the great Facebook empire may still fall, as all empires do.

Do you think Facebook is flatlining? I would love to hear your thoughts on this.

Cash for Quiet? What an Airline April Fools’ Joke Can Teach Us All

The late comedian George Carlin often argued that anything could be funny. All jokes are mostly true retellings of events or observations. The humor comes with exaggeration. “Every joke needs one thing to be way out of proportion,” he said. That contrast helps establish how “valid” the rest of the joke’s commentary actually is.

If that logic holds true, then WestJet’s April Fools’ joke struck the perfect note. A video featuring Richard Bartrem, the Canadian low cost carrier’s vice president of communications, offers a new airline perk: “Furry Family” – where all animals of cabin-safe size are welcome aboard (assuming they can use the lavatory).

“Today we’re announcing the easing of restrictions on pets in the cabin,” Bartrem says with a straight face. “We recognize that a growing number of our guests want to travel with their extended family and we’re proud to be the first airline to offer this type of service.”

And where will the two and four-legged creatures sit, crouch or hide? (Hint: not in their carriers)

Pretty much anywhere else, including the seat next to you, in storage bins or scurrying under your feet.

Laugh, laugh, ha, ha, ha. But the joke’s underlying truth is particularly telling. Our frenetic world has become a very loud and crazy place and it’s humor that WestJet has stoked before. Last year’s April Fools’ gag by the airline featured “child-free” cabins in a program called “Kargo Kids.”

But the world’s “decibel debacle” – whether it’s the sounds of screaming children, squawking chickens in coach or incessant cell phone banter – is no laughing matter. In New Delhi, for instance, one of the world’s loudest cities, noise levels top 100 decibels in commercial zones. That’s 10-15 decibels above what’s considered safe. And in case you think this is a new problem, an article in the Milwaukee Sentinel from 1955 discusses New York City as the world’s noisiest with decibel levels also around 100.

We’re left with a world screaming for quiet. And noisy children, turbines and fictitious flying menageries aside, the aircraft cabin is one of our last quasi-quiet refuges — unless, that is, the Federal Communications Commission gets its way.

Over the last few months, the agency has been pressuring the Federal Aviation Administration to relax its restrictions on in-flight electronic devices. (So what makes cell phone use any safer now versus in the past is another story)

By late this year we might all be sitting next to children and adults who lack the self control to unplug for a few precious hours and keep their phones and their mouths shut.

WestJet may not have a “Kargo Kids,” or “Furry Family,” program yet, but I can envision legacy and LCC carriers using electronic device rule changes to their advantage, segmenting strictly-enforced “cabin quiet” zones as part of ancillary revenue strategy. Instead of selling headphones for $4, why not offer $8 noise-cancelling ear buds? Think about it; that’s a small price to pay for a few hours of silence.

Unlike April Fools’ videos, this is no joke. In fact, it is very much in airlines’ interests to promote policies that talk out of both sides of their mouths – encourage in-flight device usage, popularize Wi-Fi, videoconferencing and shopping while offering pricy rewards remedies to the resulting “volume crisis.”

This sounds a lot like Big Tobacco. Yes, smoking causes “serious diseases and is addictive,” according to the Philip Morris website, but they continue selling cigarettes while also supporting smoking cessation efforts – a multi-billion dollar industry in its own right.

Airlines might not face the same ethical conundrum. But saving our eardrums and damaging them at the same time so that the air cabin really does sound like a zoo – even without an animal free-for-all, isn’t the best policy either. Don’t get me wrong; I’m all for in-flight productivity. I get some of my most creative work done in the cabin. I just hope FAA and FCC wrangling doesn’t become more of a shouting match than it already is – on the ground, or above the clouds.

Why the Lag in Airlines and Mobile Innovation? My thoughts on MobileMarketer.com

Mobile, mobile, mobile, mobile, mobile! Mobile seems to be mentioned in every other article and included in every marketing and customer engagement strategy – except when it comes to the airline industry. Mobile Marketer published my article yesterday about the economic potential that mobile technology has for airlines – even as the highly risk-averse industry seems to be fearful of incorporating these devices into every aspect of the passenger experience.

So, as the title of the column goes, why are airlines – which were truly cutting-edge during the Golden Age of commercial jets – so fearful of mobile innovation? Mostly, the current atmosphere of uncertainty in the commercial aviation industry is making airlines leery of implementing widespread tech changes if the ROI is hard to calculate.

But time – and consumers – won’t wait around: airlines should only look to how retailers and the hospitality industry are using mobile to drive engagement and revenues and take a lesson or ten from them. But that’s a topic for a future post…

In the meantime, you can read the entire article on Mobile Marketer here and I welcome your thoughts on airlines’ fear of mobile innovation in the comments section below.

What the Merging of Google Chrome and Android Means for Mobile

It may not have re-written recent headlines, but Google’s announcement that it’s putting Sundar Pichai, its senior vice president of Chrome (the company’s search engine and desktop operating system) in charge of its Android OS for mobile devices signals that bigger changes are ahead.

As I see it, these changes have both positive and negative implications.

Let’s start with the positive: Placing Chrome and Android under one roof could mean better integration between the two systems. That’s true even though a formal, more complete product union hasn’t been announced and details were carefully avoided at a recent press conference.

As the lines between what constitutes a mobile versus non-mobile device continue to blur, having siloed operating systems for each seems increasingly antiquated and inefficient, doesn’t it? So it’s very likely that in the next 5-10 years, those distinctions will become redundant. To wit, why not start the merging journey now – especially as Android remains the world’s most popular mobile operating system and Apple struggles through what might be called a delayed post-Jobs slump?

As of this writing Apple’s stock price, $452.08, was down more than 15% from a year ago. And, according to 2013’s Brand Keys Customer Loyalty Engagement Index, Samsung and Amazon dethroned Apple as the most loyally-followed brands. Regular readers of this blog and my column on Mobile Marketer will know that I’m a huge supporter of Android vs. Apple, so I can’t help but feel a little smug by these latest findings.

Now for the negative…

Corporate conglomeration and cooperation can equally become euphemisms for “monopoly” – not the board game, but the real-world competition-stifling monstrosity. I say this only because Google has a very successful track record of making its competitors obsolete. Remember all those late-90s and early-2000s search engines? Save for Yahoo and Microsoft, I can’t think of any left standing. So I Googled (a word that has become synonymous with Internet search itself) “most popular search engines,” and found a great post on Search Engine Land.

These numbers say it all:

And let’s not forget that “Google,” the verb, has been recognized as part of the English language since 2006.

So, imagine a future where Google is essentially the unchallenged king of web searching, mobile operating systems, social networking and, if prototypes like Google Glass (the soon-to-be-launched wearable computer) prove successful, hardware too. Don’t misunderstand – I am all for Google, but forgive me if I also see signs of trouble on the merger horizon ahead. Anti-trust, anyone? It also sets a dangerous precedent for competitor mobile companies, Apple included, as they seek similar types of hyper-conglomeration and cross-industry ambitions.

In a sense I’m reminded of German and European history. What began in 1951 with the inception of the European Coal and Steel Community, six countries with one shared trading market, culminated – after decades of gradual unification – in 1993 with the formation of the European Union. The EU has expanded several times since. While the philosophies underwriting its formation are noble – peace, prosperity and stability – the price of too much merging has come at a very high cost. Today (in an ironic nod to history) Germany again dominates Europe politically and economically. With the Euro uniting all in feast-or-famine outcomes, some countries have struggled under what’s become the European debt crisis. And it’s a crisis that won’t be abating any time soon.

Here’s hoping that Google’s subtle yet not-so-subtle corporate structural change doesn’t signal its aspirations to become the strongman of mobile.

That wouldn’t be good for the US, Europe or the rest of the world.