During the boom years, comparison advertising became passe among market leaders- why give credit to your competition.

Typically, it was a way to leverage a smaller brand against the leader.

Audi challenges BMW and loses

It’s a dangerous proposition. Look at the smackdown Audi gets from BMW in their billboards in Santa Monica on the right. Those who don’t study their craft are doomed to get hit twice. Honda fired Chiat/Day from their motorcycle account. Their new agency came up with “Follow the leader” to which Chiat/Day came back- now working for Yamaha with “Don’t follow anyone.”

When the economy goes bad- all bets are off. It’s time to go into the cage for a brand on brand death match.

While scrapping for every dollar might not be an option as consumers cut back, the damage it can do to a brand is real. Do you really want to be the cheapest, lowest price product when the money starts flowing again.

Chuck Porter once said at the Cincinnati Ad Club “Anyone can do a better price and product ad, all they have to do is have a lower price” so it sort of shocks me when Crispin Porter + Bogusky starts running ads for Microsoft based on price.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Where “Laptop hunters” Lisa and Jackson go to buy a laptop for under $1,500 and do a comparison between Apple and a PC.

After the drilling Apple has given Microsoft with their “Get a Mac” campaign, which has won an Effie,  and has been credited for doubling market share, Apple had to see it coming.

But, this is the kind of attention Microsoft wanted when they hired the best ad agency in the country to try to breath life back into their bankrupt Windows/Vista brand.

Crispin Porter + Bogusky is again proving that edgy, strategic advertising can get people talking about a brand differently, quickly, by pushing buttons.

They did it for anti-smoking with Truth, Mini with “Lets Motor”, the creepy King and subservient chicken for Burger King, un-pimp your auto for VW and now MSFT is getting the treatment.

[The reality is: both Apple and Microsoft will be in trouble if some 17 year old does for Linux what Blake Ross did for the Mozilla code base to create Firefox.]

Realize that Microsoft isn’t even comparing their product to Apple in the ads- they are comparing their partners hardware- people aren’t validating Microsoft in the buying ads- but Sony, HP, Dell etc.

How many companies would spend their marketing dollars on promoting their marketing partners?

When times get tough, consumers do spend more time evaluating major purchases. However, it’s not price that they look at as much as value. Giving consumers reason to talk about your brand value is only a good idea if it is really there. Look at the response to a Business Week story on the subject of the Microsoft challenge- compared to a holy war.

Maybe the best advice still comes from that old Chiat/Day ad: “Don’t follow anyone” and don’t compare. Leadership has its privileges.

These two spots are a brilliant move, trotting out the old Beetle, to get the brand back to it’s roots: affordable, reliable, quality. However, with the dollar tanking and VW really struggling to make it out of the basement of JD Power surveys, CB+P is fighting an steep uphill battle.

Supermodel Heidi Klum interviewing a 1964 black Beetle that turns red when she says German engineering is so sexy. Heidi is impressed that every VW now comes with ABS and traction control standard. Talk show format, ending with a title slide: Das Auto- which means “the auto.”

Former Indiana hoops coach Bob Knight interviewing the classic Beetle- talking about basketball records, and VW’s winning the best resale value of 2008 (which is hard to believe since 2008 isn’t over yet). The joke about “one of us winning a title this year” gets Knight mad- and he throws the chair saying he might not be retired yet.

The tagline of “The Auto” is meaningless, but eminently better than the “Once you get into a Volkswagen it gets into you” line that was trotted out right after Ms. Martin hit the job market. Somehow, I’m still waiting for CP+B to trot “Fahrvergnugen” back out- and do it right. Or for VW corporate to realize there was nothing wrong with “Drivers Wanted” which had a hint of BMW “Ultimate driving machine” for the rest of us.

Besides the dubious hints at quality (no fault of CP+B- they work with what VW builds), the only thing that stops these ads from being good is the “German voice” of the car. It’s a cartoon voice for a cartoon brand.

In the search for a brand voice, VW is still lost.

You can read the whole VW Press release here.

Vista has been a flop from day one. It was supposed to be an improvement over Windows XP, yet, people are still buying PC’s with the old operating system. That should be the first indication that Microsoft is in trouble. No one would want to buy the last version of Apple’s OS X.

And here lies the true test: will Crispin Porter + Bogusky chuck all their Mac’s and do the work on PC’s running Vista to prove that the machine is capable? (boot camp, parallels etc. don’t count). David Ogilvy was a firm believer in never advertising anything you didn’t use personally. My guess is they won’t.

Here are the details from AdAge:

Crispin Wins Microsoft’s Consumer-Products Effort – Advertising Age – Agency News
Microsoft Corp. today handed MDC Partners’ Crispin Porter & Bogusky a major consumer assignment promoting its Windows products to break later this year.
Microsoft has chosen Crispin Porter & Bogusky as their creative partner for an upcoming consumer marketing campaign.

Spending on the account was undisclosed, but could be as high as $300 million or more, according to executives familiar with the assignment. Microsoft spent almost $1 billion on measured and unmeasured marketing in the U.S. alone for 2006, according to the most recent Advertising Age DataCenter analysis….

“After a thorough review of several creative and strategic advertising agencies, Microsoft has selected Crispin Porter & Bogusky as our creative partner for an upcoming consumer marketing campaign,” read a statement from Microsoft. “Crispin was chosen based on their strategic approach, the strength of their creative ideas and the passionate and diverse team of people at the agency.”…

Although details of the new assignment have not been spelled out, Rob Enderle, principal analyst, the Enderle Group, San Jose, Calif., said it comes at a time when Microsoft is about to release a fix for the poorly received Vista, a so-called Service Pack 1…

“Microsoft lacks marketing skills,” Mr. Enderle said. “They can bring creative on board, but if it is not directed, you wind up with creative junk,” he said. “It’s clear to me this is not just an agency problem.”

Bruised by Apple
Microsoft has a problem with the continued embarrassment caused by Apple’s “Mac vs. PC” ad campaign, Mr. Enderle said. “It is unprecedented in this industry — and most — where one company makes fun of a competitor for a long period of time successfully,” he said. The last time that happened was when carmaker Isuzu poked fun of Porsche. But never did Porsche’s quality come into question, only that Isuzu presented a better deal, he said.

“This one does far more damage. It does go in and disparage the Microsoft operating system pretty solidly,” he said.

When Apple launched the “Get a Mac” campaign by TBWA/Chiat Day we compared it to the Crispin Porter + Bogusky “Manthem” spot for Burger King: Is your agency ego in line with your budget?

This may be Crispin’s opportunity to prove they still have the ability to come up with a big idea that can carry through for a brand- that cuts through the clutter. The last memorable effort that worked was the “Let’s Motor” for BMW mini, a brand they abandoned when they took on VW. Microsoft may be the client that frees them from keeping VW, where their champion CMO left them and rumors of their dismissal have been circulated.

But, the first step is switch the shops to Vista on PC’s and see how much work they can do.

But while I was shopping, I was listening to American Public Radio’s Marketplace on my iPhone, and heard a story of how Procter & Gamble invented the market for Crisco- and it reminded me why they are the marketing powerhouse- not just by dollars spent, but by long history of working hard to connect with consumers. Our current industry fixation with “Branded Content” is nothing more than a new name for the soap opera- a P&G invention.

Here is an excerpt of the podcast- and a link to the whole she-bang. Highly recommended short podcast:

Marketplace: Crisco: A marketing revolution
…Crisco maker Procter & Gamble was a pioneer in the emerging science of creating demand. Historian Susan Strasser says the Crisco experiment started in 1911, when the company was selling Ivory soap. Cottonseed oil was a key ingredient.

Susan Strasser: And they decided to develop a product that would use a lot more cottonseed oil, so that they could control that market, really.

P&G’s scientists came up with this white, fluffy substance. It sort of resembled lard, and yet had no taste and no smell. It wasn’t food, exactly, but the company would ask consumers to bake and fry with it. Thus began an American mass-marketing milestone.

Strasser: Originally, they tried to call it Crispo, but then they discovered that a cracker factory already had the trademark.

P&G hawked its new product as a “scientific discovery.” The company sent free samples to every grocer in America. They held Crisco teas — an early version of the focus group. P&G even niche-marketed the product as kosher to the Jewish community….

In the podcast they talked about how P&G educated the consumer in how to use their products- something that the web is incredibly useful for. Yet, how many company websites feature big how-to communities built around their product?

For instance, BMW motorcycles has an xplor area that’s focused on tips and tricks for sport touring – the segment of the market that they have a preferred position. How to pack your bike best, tips on GPS usage, and segments on where to go. However, it’s a members only site for BMW owners- you have to provide a vin number- and not open to the general public. Why not open the doors- so that potential customers can get a feel for what “joining the family” by buying BMW means?

Back to the Crisco story:

Marketing scholar David Stewart says P&G’s genius was not only giving people a convincing reason to try the product but training them to use it as well, with free cookbooks and recipes.

David Stewart: First of all, they focused on the health benefits — recognizing that this was a time we didn’t know about transfat and so forth. And then they taught people how to use it, they taught people how to cook. They gave them ideas. And between giving them a real benefit and information about how to use the product, they were able to get people to adopt it.

Crisco’s crowning achievement was creating demand for something nobody knew they wanted.

In today’s open information economy- putting your “recipes” behind a log-in is as silly as trying to charge for it. Would Google have been as successful if they had asked users to pay per search? Sounds absolutely stupid, doesn’t it? How about having to log in to use Google? Again, very silly.

To make friends with consumers today you have to be informative, useful, practical- and be able to demonstrate value. So, before you do an ad that is either hard sell- or entertaining- think first about what it does to enhance the customers life. The same way P&G introduced Crisco as the consumers friend: “Honestly, with a little Crisco in your frying pan, you can have supper on the table in a jiffy.”

That was marketing.

One of the things we stress is that if you aren’t on the first page of Google you don’t exist, and that content drives traffic. Build valuable content and they will come.

Unfortunately, it’s falling on mostly dead ears. Even huge advertisers like Apple, Burger King and BMW don’t seem to understand how to port their marketing to the web properly. It’s not about how your site looks, especially your “home page”- it’s about the content on every page: every page is home for someone- about something.

So- it was good to see new media bigwigs Avenue A/Razorfish do a study to confirm what we already knew- excerpts from the Ad Age article follow- with a short primer on what we know works on the web:

Do Home Pages Have a Place in Web 2.0’s Future? – Advertising Age – Digital
Avenue A/Razorfish: Brands’ Main Sites Decline in Importance as Consumers’ Reliance on Search Grows
By Abbey Klaassen Published: October 01, 2007

Garrick Schmitt was sitting in a meeting, listening to a client talk about the need to make its website “Web 2.0-compliant,” complete with tag clouds and profile pages. “Tag clouds?” thought Mr. Schmitt, VP-user experience at Avenue A/Razorfish. “Really?”…

The request seemed curious to him — do that many people really use tag clouds that a brand marketer’s website needed to incorporate them? Surprisingly, he couldn’t find the answer to that question. So he decided to find out.

The following months, his team conducted a study of almost 500 connected consumers to figure out how people were using marketer websites and forecast what would be important in web design during the next year…

‘Sanity check’
The report, out today, will serve as a “sanity check” for some early Web 2.0 adopters and technophiles. And, he said, “for more traditional marketers, there’s a whole new world we have to introduce them to.”

One of the most surprising things the team found was how many people are starting their online shopping with search – more than 54% of the study’s panel, in fact. The idea that more consumers are coming to brand sites through the side door of search means search engines are starting to circumvent brands when it comes to online shopping. While a consumer looking for a pizza stone offline might drive to her nearest Williams-Sonoma, in the online world she’s more likely to just type the product name into Google and see what comes up.

“Marketers need to stop thinking so much about their site and more about what’s happening outside their site, such as widgets, viral and search,” Mr. Schmitt said.

It also means home pages are becoming less important as search drives those visitors deeper into a site, meaning marketers need to treat product pages like home pages, adding navigation and sharing functions.

Bookmarking together
Speaking of sharing, social recommendations continue to grow in importance. More than 85% of people on the panel used “most popular” links on sites to decide what to look at and more than 55% made purchase decisions based on user reviews.

“Peers still drive consumer preference,” Mr. Schmitt said. “Nothing else even comes close.”

Another trend: Incorporating more data into design. While designers and developers have many rich technologies at their disposal, they also have better ways to mine behavioral data and adapt their sites in real time.

Four tips for digital design

1. Make content portable with widgets and RSS so people can interact with it anywhere.
2. Turn on consumer ratings and reviews and allow commenting wherever possible.
3.  Invest in online video.
4. Think outside your site — how do search, social media, offline ads and blogs relate?

Search logs, site analytics and behavioral data can provide guidance for design, as can offline channels such as call centers…

Oh, and what of those tag clouds Mr. Schmitt set out to analyze? Almost 65% of consumers never use them; a little more than 11% use them all or most of the time.
One of the first things we ask our seminar participants is “how often do you check your web stats?” We’re lucky if most even know what they are. While stats are a good starting point- they are also valuable to learn what’s working and what isn’t.

Right now, a post we have about an Apple TV spot is routinely drawing 90% of search directed traffic to this site- traffic that should be going to Apple’s site. But, the difference is- Apple built a pretty site, and we built a useful one. Spend millions on an ad to drive interest in your product and desire more information- but have potential customers show up here, instead of on the well known Apple is inexcusable.

Brand advertising and home pages are fine- but, in the end, it’s really about building a place online where your fans can find everything they want to know about each product you make (or have made in the past). That is the “Home Page” of the future- the home of your product.

What do you think?

The most recent shockers were GSD+M losing Walmart, Wieden + Kennedy losing Nike running and Fallon losing BMW. All the agencies had taken their clients to the top- and then some. With each of these divorces must come costs- yet, clients don’t seem to understand the brand equity involved in an agency relationship. It can take years to find a client voice- and only one swift move by a budding CMO to lose it.

So, with the “trading agencies” show going great guns- the new business to be in is one of matchmaker- to which we recently added Ark Advisors/AAI to the mix. Here is their uninspired bio: (with writing like this, it’s a wonder they are qualified to tell the good agencies from the bad)

About Us
Ark Advisors is a management consulting firm that focuses on a broad range of complex issues facing corporate advertisers and their marketing communications partners. We work in concert with our clients to optimize their relationships with their agencies and to maximize the effectiveness of their own marketing operations.

We have four primary areas of specialization: Agency/Resource Search, Agency Compensation, Client-Agency Relationship management, and corporate Marketing Management.

The Next Wave tries to provide the most update to date list of “agency search consultants” on the web- for those thinking of finding a new agency. Of course, once you’ve found us- you really shouldn’t need to do much more searching.

There are thousands of ad agencies in this country- and all of them would love to be able to take a stab at work for the premier consumer brands- like Nike, Apple, Burger King, Dominos, BMW, Ford etc…

But, when it comes to choosing an ad agency- Chief Marketing Officers seem to have tunnel vision. The list usually looks like this:

Crispin Porter + Bogusky, Wieden + Kennedy, TBWA Chiat/Day, Fallon, Arnold, Martin, Deutch, Goodby + Silverstein, GSD&M – you get the point. Maybe 50 agencies make the list- the rest, fight for the scraps.

Considering it can take at least a year before an agency can (or should) be comfortable enough to take a client in a new category (ad people don’t know everything there is to know about the shoe business- unless they’ve worked in it before) to a new place, with an on target strategy, changes like the following one, make me wonder:

Advertising Age – Nike Moves Running-Shoe Account to Crispin
Nike has officially transferred the creative work for its running-shoe business, as well as the Nike Plus and its Nike ID Web site accounts, to Miami-based Crispin Porter & Bogusky, a Nike spokesman said.
Nike’s running-shoe business was the first account expected to move from Wieden.
‘Proven track record’
“Crispin Porter & Bogusky has a proven track record for delivering creative, breakthrough ideas and we are excited to begin working with them to support these areas of business,” said Dean Stoyer, Nike’s U.S. director of media relations.
Mr. Stoyer said Nike will “continue working with our longtime creative partner Wieden & Kennedy to support the majority of our Nike business.”
Nike has been talking with Crispin for several months, and finally confirmed last month that it planned on moving pieces of its business to agencies other than Portland, Ore.-based Wieden. The running-shoe business was the first account expected to move.

While Crispin Porter + Bogusky is great at making noise, they have yet to take a brand the full course from a nobody like Nike was when Wieden + Kennedy started with them- to the power house they are now.

To abandon the date that brought you is a mistake of major proportions for Nike. If Wieden could afford it- telling Nike to take a walk on the whole shooting match would be the right move. Kudo’s to Roy Spence for rejecting WalMart’s invite to rebid the account after the Draft debacle. Loyalty and longevity in a client/agency relationship are valuable business assets, a part of the “goodwill” number on a balance sheet that shouldn’t be ignored.

The thing that baffles me is that both W+K can have the pick of ad talent (hiring)- if anything has stopped Nike from getting the work they think they are going to get from Crispin- it’s been on their side- not on the W+K side. However, if W+K had moved into a bunker mentality- worrying about losing the account (since it is a major part of their business) and the relationship changed from one of trust- to one of uncertainty, and stopped presenting the riskier, more volatile ideas because they thought that Nike wouldn’t be happy? Nike should look internally for their answer here- because from my perspective- they are trading down for an agency.

I was lent the book by a former employer, who had been given it as a gift by one of his professors. After I read it, I tried to talk to him about it, his response: “I don’t read books.” I didn’t stay at that job very long (probably because I did read).

I went to Pentagram’s London office to find a copy, several years later. They were nice enough to give me a copy- that had a section removed- and she copied the missing pages. I later got a complete copy from an art book store in Santa Monica- it’s one of my most prized books.

So, when I stumbled onto Pentagram’s blog- and saw this logo- I was instantly reminded of why I believe design does make a difference.

Take a look at this elegant logo- then read their description:

New at Pentagram: New Work: One Laptop Per Child
Pentagram has designed the identity and website for One Laptop per Child, the non-profit organization with the goal of providing laptop computers to all children in developing nations.

The identity is a hieroglyph, designed to be universally understood, that utilizes the icons of the OLPC laptop interface, also developed by Pentagram. The website design employs these symbols as the basis for navigation. Each icon leads to a corresponding section of information: the laptop to a section about hardware and software, the arrow to a section about participation, and so on. The site launched in English but is currently being translated into many languages.

For all the companies that don’t think they can afford to do a proper logo on start-up, just remember, you can pay now, or pay later. A well designed brand mark can make the difference between having a corporate identity- and becoming a lifestyle brand, ala Nike, Apple, BMW, Mini etc.

And, by the way, if you aren’t familiar with the One Laptop Per Child initiative, you need to read more about it- it’s truly something that could change the world.

So, before Crispin Porter + Bogusky brought back “Have it your way” for Burger King- other agencies have done the same thing. Which leads me to the question: Why didn’t Crispin bring back “Tastes Great- Less Filling” for Miller Lite? Especially once they were in trouble with “Man Laws?”

Is it because in taste tests Miller doesn’t beat Bud (I’m not a beer drinker)? That would make the strategy fundamentally flawed- and then the ads will actually hurt the brand.

When the VW marketing chief asked for a return to an umbrella theme- shouldn’t Crispin look back at “Drivers Wanted” and see if the connection can be made?

BMW hasn’t abandoned “The ultimate driving machine” through several agencies (although the motorcycle division isn’t smart enough to use “The ultimate riding machine”)- and the concept still resonates.

A well known brand is shorthand for a set of emotions and conditioned responses from the consumer. The tagline, if it is closely identified and well known with your brand- is equity that shouldn’t be thrown away just because you are tired of it. The real creativity comes from being able to keep creating interesting executions that connect to the brand.

Apple has stood for ease of use in the consumers minds for years- but until the “I’m a Mac, I’m a PC” campaign came, they had a hard time getting people to look at them as serious business computers (granted, being able to run Windows has also helped). Nike has “Just do it”- a tagline that could live forever and never be topped. (And to the person who called me on the phone and asked me who wrote it- and I drew a blank- it’s Jim Riswold).

The book “The Brand Gap” by Marty Neumeier covers branding better than any book I’ve read. The hand test and the swap test are probably two of the simplest, most obvious tools a marketer should pass.

The hand test asks if you cover the logo- can you tell who did the ad? And the swap test is equally cool- could your logo and someone elses swap and work better- he shows Polaroid and Nationwide Insurance (I should grab a scan and put it in here).

So- does your tagline instantly identify your brand- and no one elses? If it does, consider yourself lucky- and be really careful about changing it unless you have a really good reason and know it will work.

If you know of other resurected taglines- feel free to add them to the comments.

Now why would Saatchi do that? And why would Toyota agree? It’s called diversity- maybe not in the traditional sense of minority hiring, or Service Disabled Veteran Owned Business- but in diversity of ideas. Big agencies, in big cities are sometimes insulated from the reality of the rest of the country. As Ad Age points out- the difference between calling that thing under the back bumper a “tow hitch” or a “receiving hitch” would escape most creatives in LA.

It’s also a form of creative out-sourcing- not in a bad way, but in a forward thinking way like the way Eli Lilly and Company went Open Source in their search for answers to create new drugs. Saatchi can hire an agency where 80% of the employees actually own pick-ups(Brothers & Co) as opposed to the yuppie-mobile favored by people in LA. The perspective on the consumer is different out here in the “fly-over” states.

A recent trip to NYC gave me insight on the BMW motorcycle account. Walking around NYC I saw BMW’s everywhere. The agency is in NY, the client in NJ- this is what they see. The only time you see more BMW’s than Harley’s in the Midwest is when the weather sucks- and we BMW riders are the only ones on the road. Our reality is that the dealers are going under left and right- from lack of interest generated by advertising created in an alternate reality- where BMW’s rule, and dealerships are plentiful.

Saatchi also doesn’t have to carry as many people by using this strategy. Why buy the cow, when you only need the milk? The cost of a creative team is more than just salaries and benefits- overhead for office space, computers, support personnel all add up.

Is this the model of the future? Is this the beginning of the end of the Mega-agency and a return to small creative shops? Are there creatives outside the spheres of advertising that can do good work? Whoever heard of creative in Minneapolis, Portland or Miami before Fallon, Wieden + Kennedy and Crispin Porter + Bogusky?

The best soliders in the US Army, a megalithic organization, aren’t operating in the huge units- they work in teams of 12 on a Special Forces team. Maybe the ad world is starting to see that big isn’t always beautiful. After all is said and done, most “Big Ideas” come from a creative team of two.

Maybe the return of the creative team is the next big thing.

Ad Age lists the team for the Tundra campaign:

Saatchi & Saatchi LA

Agency partners:
Brothers & Co. Tulsa
Pocket Hercules, Minneapolis
VSA Design, Fort Collins Co.
RadicalMedia LA

Freelance Creative Consultants:
Eric McClellan
Ray Johnson
Andrew Christou
Charlie Tercek
Gavin Milner

If you know the links to Eric or Gavin- let me know.

But how to compete? How does a sole practitioner make enough noise to get noticed above the din of one of the most cut-throat industries known to man?

Our solution was “Zen Windows” a brand that was the antithesis of the standard positioning. His new slogan “Relax, window quotes in five minutes” opened a new conversation with customers who had already experienced the grueling three hour sessions of the competition.

So successful is his strategy, that About.com wrote about it.

Replacement Windows – Profile of Zen Windows – Replacement Window Company
Zen Windows – Doing Replacement Windows Differently

If you think your business can’t compete with the Goliaths of your industry- consider what is accepted practice- and think about how you can differentiate yourself. BMW motorcycle dealers are different because they let customers ride demo bikes. Apple built it’s own network of Apple stores- that are as much an experience as a retail environment. Target asked it’s vendors to help them differentiate the product offering with high design products at a reasonable price. What makes your business different?

Can an ad agency like The Next Wave help? Ask Dan Wolt for a reference.

Before today- Bruce Bildsten was just a copy god in my book. He was one of the stars that came up with the great ideas for BMW Films (note- idiots at BMW took it down) while at Fallon. Fallon has always been one of my favorite big agencies that still acts like they are small.

Then Bildsten went out on his own- and sent some PR out claiming to be launching the next big thing in the advertising world- but, don’t call it an ad agency. It appeared on Ernie Schenck’s blog- which I enjoy greatly. Unfortunately, while Bruce may believe he’s the bomb, and his new agency, Brew, a Creative Collaborative, will be the shizzel, he forgot to make himself accessible.

You can read more on Ernies Blog on this link.

You can see my comments there- and read the previous post on this site here:

http://www.thenextwave.biz/tnw/?p=246

But- you can also Google Bruce and find this article he wrote for Fast Company- where, in his first line- he makes a PR faux pas- claiming to be a ski bum.

Which brings me to the point I want to make: What you say in print- is now forever findable in search. Does Bruce, newly minted “non-agency” owner, really want to be a ski bum now- or admit that he is in business?

And although it’s not entirely applicable, this post about conducting interviews via e-mail, and posting them on your site- with your spin, before someone else allows them to be pureed at will, might start to make more sense.

http://blogosopher.com/?p=161

Needless to say- I wish Bruce all the luck in his new business, however, If I’m a mega-brand looking for you- I’d rather find your site at the top of Google, than something you wrote years ago where you don’t admit to being in business.

Maybe it’s time to give up skiing and start managing your brand. We’d be glad to help.

Bruce Bildsten: A Creative Approach to Communication Clutter

Bruce Bildsten works as a creative director for Fallon. Because of his work on BMW Films, Bildsten was named to Adweek’s All-Star Creative Team.

I kind of joke that I never read business magazines. I don’t like to admit that I’m in business. I like to pretend that I’m still a ski bum.

The Next Wave is in business- for business, as an ad agency. We eat, sleep and breathe advertising. We will make you a lot more money than you pay us. That’s our promise. Our corporate mission statement isn’t about being new, bigger, better, hipper, cooler-

it’s this: Create lust, evoke trust.

We hope by reading about us, our work and our ideas, you get it.

Feel free to inquire about changing the world.

If you search for “BMW Motorcycle Advertising” in Google- we’re the first hit- out of a lot (1,400,000) of search results. It’s not something that we write a lot about, but it showcases how we can get our subject matter to the top of Google- something that can be critical in being part of the evoked set for a buyer shopping for your product category.

If your company wants to get to the front page of Google- even when people are searching for your competitors- and, are interested in great marketing/advertising- instead of just search engine optimization, you would do better hiring The Next Wave than one of those big NYC agencies that BMW’s motorcycle division chief Laurence Kuykendall hired.

These days- brand relevancy is often accompanied by a lot of chatter on the web- and having people find your site, before finding someone who is not so kind to your products or service is one key to staying competitive.