There is a printing craft that has taking a beating from Laserprinters, digital presses, direct to plate and inkjet imaging-it’s the old school, hot type letterpress studio.

When I was in Paris a few years ago- I stumbled into an old shop that still was composing type by hand- and it was a joy to look at ink pressed into paper.

I just found a site that is a guide to letterpress shops- and thought I would share:

D*S Letterpress Guide
Welcome- what you’ll find here is a working guide to some of the best letterpress studios in the country (as well as a few abroad).

The guide is meant to be searched by the following categories: State, City, E-commerce Enabled, Custom Work and Pre-Made work. You’re more than welcome to read down the center column as you would with a blog but the list is much more useful when organized by search results.

If you know of any letterpress printers around Dayton OH- please add them to the letterpress guide- and drop a comment on this site.

Unbelievably, the Letterpress guide makes no reference to Hatch Show Print, the coolest place for band posters this side of Mars.

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Posted in: Creativity, Design, Differentiating your brand, The craft of advertising

Uber cool agency Crispin Porter + Bogusky fired Miller beer as a client after the client started thinking they could do a better job themselves.

Well, when it comes to selling beer, consumers are a mighty fickle group, and the one thing that brewers need to understand is your advertising programs need to be more strategic than tactical- where is the “Just do it” of beer advertising? Why did Miller ever veer from “Taste’s Great- Less Filling” campaign for Lite that got them to the top? In the article on Ad Age, Cripsin makes it clear that too many chiefs were killing the creative- a common problem in many marketing programs. If you hire pros- make sure you understand the strategy- and establish what your performance goals are.

Advertising Age – Man Flaws: Why Miller and Crispin Couldn’t Stop Lite From Stumbling
Crispin was a different story. “We just have fundamental differences over creative and strategy” said Chief Creative Officer Alex Bogusky in a statement. “Although we made every attempt to find common ground, the process of multilayered approvals of creative and strategy has made doing work we can be proud of increasingly difficult.”

Those “multilayered approvals” are said to refer to Mr. Long, who was chief marketing officer before being promoted last year; Mr. Ransom; Deb Boyda, VP-brand management; and Erv Frederick, VP-brand strategy for Miller Lite. And it’s been said that Mr. Adami, the SABMiller president, has been taking a more active interest in marketing, although it’s unclear to what extent.

‘Contradictory points of view’
“You’ve got three or four different top-tier people with contradictory points of view,” said one person familiar with the matter, expressing a viewpoint that was shared by two other executives. “There’s a constant shifting of strategy, and a lack of a common vision.”

Miller is now stuck at the height of “beer season” without a mug to present to the public. While there will be many agencies running to Miller with ideas, maybe the guys in charge of marketing at Miller should put their asses on the line and do the campaigns themselves for a whole year- and risk their paychecks on the results?

Crispin proved they knew how to add value to beer with the Twin Label Technology they developed for Molson. Miller has had a string of failures. Remember “Dick.”

The lesson to learn from this debacle is that before you roll out a campaign like “Man Laws”- make sure you understand what the intended results will be- and what you are measuring? Hits on a website are nice- but sales are more important.

Crispin will have a new beer account within 6 months. Miller will have a new agency in 6 months, but this “beer season” will be a bust for Lite- thanks to Miller making the wrong call.

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Posted in: Advertising, Brand relevancy, Crispin Porter + Bogusky, Differentiating your brand, Everything you want to know about advertising, Great ad agencies, How to select an ad agency, Practical Marketing 101, Secrets of great advertising

I wish my associate had kept the receipt, but, Taco Bell needs to work on their site integration with their stores: there’s nothing worse than a broken promise.

I text messaged Richard to pick me up three items off the “Big Bell Value Menu” where all items are .99- of course I can’t send a link, because they build their site in Flash- just like all the rest of the big chains- not searchable, not bookmarkable- and really, not that useful with it’s “pop-a-mole” navigation system. Never mind there aren’t actuall descriptions of what are in any of the items. There are so many things that a site for a national fast food restaurant could do- but unfortunately, none of them understand web 2.0

I ordered the Zesty Nachos, Grande Soft Taco and the Double Decker taco. When Richard got to the register- the girl had no clue. I ended up with three items that were similar to the items I ordered, but they came to $3.79.

Taco Bell just failed me over .82 cents- and now I remember why I don’t make a run for the border very often.

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Posted in: Advertising, Brand relevancy, Differentiating your brand, Everything you want to know about advertising, Marketing & the Web, Practical Marketing 101, Public Relations in the Web 2.0 world, Search and Business, Web strategy

Advertising is usually delivered in what we call “paid media” – which would include TV, Radio, Print, Direct Mail, Outdoor, Internet etc. It’s usually your company talking about yourself.

There is also what we’ve come to know as “unpaid media” which is usually described as Public Relations- where  your press release, guerrilla stunt, amazing feat, etc. is actually newsworthy- and you appear in the media- usually print, radio, TV or Internet. This could be defined as others talking about you.

Then we have the new media form, and by that, I don’t mean web, Internet, etc. and it’s new name “earned media”- this is where something is so interesting that it gets circulated and watched out of fascination. It is the basic building block of a viral campaign. It is becoming the most valued form of advertising- but there is no price tag on it. You can’t just pony up money and get the eyeballs. Earned media is the result of the new currency in advertising (which really has always been the true currency) creativity. Creative solutions, creative executions, interesting, funny, informative and unexpected messages can take your brand message places that conventional (paid and unpaid media) can’t and won’t.

This creates a huge problem in advertising agency compensation – are you as a client, willing to pay for the value of a good idea? Or are you still basing your compensation plan on the size of your media buy or on hours worked? If you want to earn eyeballs instead of pay for them, the first thing you need to eyeball is what you are trying to buy from your ad agency.

And then decide what kind of media is going to get you what you want.

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Posted in: Change the world, Creativity, Everything you want to know about advertising, Future of advertising, How to select an ad agency, Marketing & the Web, Practical Marketing 101, Public Relations in the Web 2.0 world, Secrets of great advertising, Viral Marketing, Web strategy

In our effort to bring you the best, most useful, and interesting insight into advertising, ad agencies, and getting the most for your marketing dollar- we stumbled upon this post by “Gerry McGovern” in a non-web 2.0 site- but was right on:

Web design: never let an ad agency near your website: January 19, 2004 issue of New Thinking by Gerry McGovern
The average advertising agency fundamentally doesn’t get the Web. Saatchi & Saatchi, BBDO Worldwide, J. Walter Thompson and Ogilvy are great advertising agencies. When it comes to managing their own websites, however, they are rank amateurs. They bring their print and TV thinking to the Web with embarrassing results.

Well worth a click over – where he rants about the stupidity of the Flash intro, and the innane copy which makes every agency sound- well- alike. He doesn’t actually give your real stats on why big ad agency sites suck (we do that quite aptly here: ad agencies seek diversity) but he does describe some sites- that when you visit today- will realize haven’t changed or updated content in 3 years (we just went to LeoBurnett.com the other day- only to leave totally frustrated with the most worthless web navigation ever- and no search function).

We’re not saying that all big advertising agency sites are boring, or ugly- just that most of them aren’t actually useful.

Here are some key ways to evaluate an ad agencies web competence:

• Is the text selectable- and copyable- so you could easily put together their brilliant ideas for marketing into a memo for your boss on why to hire them?  (This also means you can read the content with a text-to-speech reader for blind people- and that the site will be indexable by google).
• Are there separate pages for each piece of content- in other words- can you send a link to the exact spot that you think is relevant to your boss- “Hey, look at this brilliant marketing strategy” – I think it applies to our company.
• Is the content  current- and changing? Google rewards fresh new ideas and content. If thy don’t update their content, how can they suggest you do it? Practicing what you preach is important on the web.
• Can you view the site without having to turn off noise, or have video start without you telling it to? Good for not disturbing the boss- or letting him know that you are secretly looking for a new ad agency because your current one isn’t very web-savvy.
• When you go to Google and type in: site:bigagency.tld you actually get more than one page. Try it for this site- site:thenextwave.biz and look at how many pages are indexed!
• Another key to finding out if your prospective agency is web 2.0 compliant- look for links out, and links in. Although not perfect- going to Google and type in link:thenextwave.biz will show you a smattering of what links to us. We know many more link to us, because we watch our web stats- a very informative tool to gather information about who is saying what about you.

There are a whole bunch of other questions to ask before hiring an ad agency- but we try to cover that in our topic “how to pick an ad agency”- as opposed to here- where we’re just talking about web 2.0 web skills.

If you have questions on how to analyze your ad agencies web competence, feel free to give us a call.

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Posted in: Ad Agenices In Dayton OH, Everything you want to know about advertising, Future of advertising, Great ad agencies, How to select an ad agency, Marketing & the Web, Practical Marketing 101, Public Relations in the Web 2.0 world, Search and Business, Web strategy

Typically, the only thing that my alma matter does for me is call to ask for money. Found this backlink at the Wright State College of Business for links on resources to help find jobs in marketing. We are the only listed local resource.

Typically, every single job hunter looking for a position in advertising in the Dayton, Cincinnati or Columbus area has been to our site thanks to our page: Agencies that aren’t The Next Wave, a list of ad agencies.

It’s so popular- we’ve even been copied by Brainwave Connection who now claim to be “The Next Wave of E-marketing” in an attempt to confuse people and get higher search placement.

Career Services: Alumni: Services: Major Specific Links: Business
Marketing
Advertising Age
Business Job Finder: Explore Business Careers
Careers in Marketing
Economists and Marketing Research Analysts
Marketing & Sales Jobs Page
Marketing Jobs
Marketing Major in the Raj Soin College of Business
Public Relations Society of America
So You’re Thinking About a Marketing Career
The Ad Council
The Next Wave: Dayton Area Advertising Agencies

We believe that our job is to provide useful, helpful content on the web- not just to be “The Next Wave of e-marketing” – but to help people find jobs and the best ad agencies in Dayton to help them solve their specific marketing challenges.

We also do it because we understand the web- and guerrilla marketing- and if you don’t believe us- you can always look to see what BrainWave Connections says about us:

For more information on competitive online ranking and positioning, contact BrainWave Emarketing.
The Next Wave
Leading practitioners of (guerrilla marketing). Not for the feint of heart.
www.thenextwave.biz
100 Bonner Street
Dayton OH 45410
937.228.4433

Here is a frame grab of the above, just in case they get embarrased about giving us such praise:

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Posted in: Ad Agenices In Dayton OH, Careers in Advertising, Differentiating your brand, Everything you want to know about advertising, Guerrilla campaigns, How to select an ad agency, Marketing & the Web, Practical Marketing 101, Search and Business, Web strategy

I’m totally convinced that within 5 years, the only people selling targeted ads in video will be Google. The networks (broadcast and cable) will be toast. Content producers will be uploading their content to Google Video- where we will go to download our programs. Some will be free, others will cost, and if you can’t afford to buy the program at full price, you’ll be able to opt in to sell your eyeballs to some marketer who wants to reach you.

So, when Google wants to know it’s future, they call on Seth Godin- and this 48 minute video shows you why Seth Godin is one of the go-to guys for the future of marketing and advertising.

When I have some more time, I’ll pull out the juicy parts- but for now- I’ve pointed you in the right direction.

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Posted in: Advertising, Brand relevancy, Change the world, Creativity, Design, Differentiating your brand, Everything you want to know about advertising, Future of TV, Future of advertising, Marketing & the Web, Search and Business, Viral Marketing, Web strategy

We’ve been working on a local film festival and trying to get materials to promote the films. This shouldn’t be too difficult- wrong.

Movie after movie has a site built in Flash- with no way to easily get the images or synopsis that would make promoting a movie easy. Even finding the films “Official site” is next to impossible- and that’s even with the amazing resource of IMDB.com

So- a few tips to independent film makers (and maybe even some major film distributors):

• Have searchable content- that means the viewer should be able to select and copy your text.
• Have your film logo available as an .eps, or .ai, or even in a pdf, in case someone wants to use it to promote your film.
• Have high resolution still photos from your film- for print articles about the film. Make sure you tag them so Google images can find them too- include names of stars, the name of the movie, not image001.jpg (it doesn’t hurt to have a stuffed/zip file for the complete press kit)
• Keep your site up-to-date with news and showings. Flash makes this more difficult- a blog makes this easy.
• Provide information that reviewers would find useful on the site: bio’s of actors, writers, the history that goes with your film.
• Have film clips and trailers available in multiple resolutions- in a universal format. We prefer Quicktime, but, what ever you do- don’t embed them so we can’t use them on our promotional site.
• Have your contact information available. If the film is available in subtitled form, make sure you have the site in each language.
• Make sure you update your IMDB.com entry with your official site link.

The Next Wave can build you a very effective site, for a lot less than what these fancy Flash sites are costing- and get you better search position. But, this really isn’t being written to be a sales pitch- it’s written out of frustration because we can’t get what we need to promote a film festival.

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Posted in: Advertising, Everything you want to know about advertising, Future of advertising, Low budget advertising, Marketing & the Web, Media, Public Relations in the Web 2.0 world, Search and Business, Web strategy

Hey, it’s good to know that The One Club (those cool cats who hand out Gold Pencils- at around $600 per entry) has discovered advertising can be done by agencies smaller than 3000 people.

Writing in their “One. a Magazine” they say:

One Club / One. a Magazine > Recent Issues/Articles
There’s a new wave of regional creative shops coming to prominence these days, in cities that have never before been associated with strong creative ads: Indianapolis, Madison, Orlando, New Orleans, and a dozen other small-to-midsized markets.

What’s driving this “second regional revolution?” Part of it seems to be the fact that clients, in an age of new media explosion and wide-open marketing possibilities, are looking for fresh thinkers who can experiment and adapt quickly—and they’re finding that, increasingly, by going off the beaten path.

The only thing they got wrong was their first line: There’s The Next Wave, a prominent agency doing strong creative in Dayton OH.

They must have missed that part about you can say anything you want about us- just get the name right…

Now- to be totally serious- the article is a step in the right direction. Great advertising can come from anywhere. Many small agencies would rather invest in their people, instead of high dollar award show entry fees.

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Posted in: Advertising, Creativity, Everything you want to know about advertising, Great ad agencies, How to select an ad agency

Went to the Dayton Ad Club today- yeah, the people who continually threaten to throw us out- to hear Clint! Runge from Archrival speak.

Very cool insight into the “Millenials” or “GenY”- and a nice presentation. I was excited to go and check out their site- which would of course be web 2.0 to the hilt – since these guys “got it”- well, no joy:

Archrival / We Help Brands Attract Young Consumers

Sure- they have RSS, and a “blog”- but so little content that is actually able to be spread.

Just like the Burger King site- or so many other agency sites, if I find something interesting on the site- I can’t mail it to you. Too bad, because the work they did on the TipTop upscale apartment building is something I’d want to share with others. Luckily, they built the site for the client better than they built for themselves- so you can check it out: http://www.thetiptoplife.com/

Clint! must have seen the branding campaign by Hamilton! Ohio a few years back- which map makers refused to acknowledge. In the days of Google, it’s a cool way to get your google rank up.

Some key concepts that struck home about the millenials:

• Give them experiences to talk about- not products.
• Be optimistic and positive- the days of sarcasm are fading.
• It’s about we- more than me.
• Computer/phone first lines of communication- forget traditional media.
• Recommendations from peers are more powerful than anything you can try to ram down their throat.

Also loved his comment about “Entertainment debt”- where you feel that you are behind when there is too much stuff cued up on your TiVo or in your “to watch” file. I can relate. Also, as MySpace becomes more and more commercialized- we’ll see more people kill their profiles as they move to more specialized and hip communities. As to marketers jumping into MySpace- get your own space- and make it fun- that boat sailed a while back.

As a side note- the woman sitting next to me recognized me as being from the agency that lists all the adveritisng agencies in Dayton on our site. Of course, she had just completed her job search and was working for one of them. Congrats for being a smart job seeker.

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Posted in: Ad Agenices In Dayton OH, Brand relevancy, Change the world, Creativity, Differentiating your brand, Everything you want to know about advertising, Future of advertising, Great ad agencies, Marketing & the Web, Practical Marketing 101, Secrets of great advertising, Web strategy