Author Archives: Riku Vassinen

Jun 25 2012
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Advertising

What The Hell Do These Names Mean? (Agency Cheat Sheet)

Even though advertising agencies should be the experts in branding, the own brand names of agencies are traditionally quite cryptic. The usual method of naming are the initials of the founders like with the law firms. Whether the reason is egoism, tradition or just plain unimaginativeness, this list proves that in order to succeed as an advertising head, you have to have a distinctive name. No matter whether you are planner from Paris or copywriter from Portland, it is crucial to get those initials to the door.

I have collected most of the current biggest networks here and added some now-defunct but historically important agencies. There are many agencies missing, but add your own in the comment section below. I started compiling the list when I started to get lost of all the different acronyms and holding companies. I think the most funniest/annoying names are when two companies have merged and there might be two odd-looking sets of acronyms within each other.

NOTE: I have added mainly the ones which are based on the agency founder´s name, because those are the ones which usually are the trickiest to remember. And couple of others, if there is a good story behind it.

Agency Cheat Sheet: What the hell do these names mean?

1. Omnicom

Omnicom was formed in 1986 in a merger between DDB, BBDO & Needham Harper Steers and is currently the biggest advertising holding company. Jim Carrey worked in company called Omnicom in Truman Show.

BBDO: Batten, Barton, Durstine & Osborn. 1891 George Batten founded Batten & Co. Bruce Barton & Roy Durstine open an agency called Barton & Durstine on 1919, Alex Osborn joins during later that year. Batten company and BDO merged in 1928. Alex Osborn invented brainstorming technique.
DDB: Doyle Dane Bernbach, founded in 1949 by Maxwell Dane (promotions), Ned Doyle (account), Bob Gage (art director), Bill Bernbach (copywriter) & Phyllis Robinson (a copywriter). Heralded as the first creative agency, where art directors and copywriters worked side to side. Agency behind the legendary Volkswagen “Think Small” -ad.
TBWA: The EU equivalent of the advertising agencies. Founded in 1970 in Paris by Bill Tragos (American with greek-descent management), Claude Bonnange (French planner), Uli Wiesendanger (Swiss copywriter) & Paulo Ajroldi (Italian account guy). Started to really expand in 00´s.
Goodby, Silverstein & Partners: Agency founded in 1983 by Jeff Goodby, Rich Silverstein & Andy Berlin in San Francisco. Andy Berlin left and the company was renamed. Agency behind the famous “Got Milk?”-campaign.

2. WPP
Wire & Plastic Products was founded in 1977 and was originally manufacturer of shopping baskets. In 1985, Sir Martin Sorrell, the former financial director of Saatchi & Saatchi, bought the listed company and started building worldwide marketing services company buying notable advertising networks.

JWT: James Walter Thompson, founded in 1878. James Walter Thompson bought his old agency for total of 1,300 dollars (500 for the company, 800 for the furniture). Stephen King from JWT London has been said to invent the account planning function.
Young & Rubicam: Copywriter Raymond Rubicam & account man James Orr Young met each other while working in N.W. Ayer. Founded in 1923 although started to get succesful during the depression. George Gallup was working in Y&R, before founding his own marketing research firm.
Ogilvy & Mather: Originally Hewitt, Ogilvy, Benson & Mather founded in 1948. Anderson Hewitt was the first CEO and account man from JWT. David Ogilvy´s brother was the managing director of Mather & Crowther and S.H. Benson another well-known British agency who invested to this american start-up. As the history would show, only the first name is remembered.

3. Publicis
Marcel Bleustein started Publics in 1927. Current Publicis CEO Maurice Levy started in the company as an IT director. Group has a strategic alliance with Dentsu (5.).

BBH: Founded in 1982 by John Bartle, Nigel Bogle & John Hegarty. Responsible for the legendary Levi´s ads, which made me to take attention during commercial breaks.
Leo Burnett: Founded in 1935 in Chicago by Leo Burnett with bowl of apples on its reception desk. Agency behind legendary characters such as Marlboro Man & Tony The Tiger.
Saatchi & Saatchi: Originally Cramer & Saatchi founded by Charles Saatchi (copywriter) and Ross Cramer (art director). The collaboration did not work so Charles brought on his brother Maurice Saatchi (publisher at the time) and Saatchi & Saatchi started in 1970. Expanded rapidly through mergers & acquisitions and during the height was also trying to buy an own bank.
To make things complicated there are actually two Saatchi agencies at the moment. After they were ousted from Saatchi & Saatchi, Charles & Maurice founded another agency in 1995 called M&C Saatchi.

4. Interpublic
Interpublic started operating on 1961 as the world´s first marketing services holding company then comprising of McCann-Erickson and McCann-Marschalk. It went public ten years later.

Draftfcb: Foote, Cone & Belding was originally founded 1873 (Lord & Thomas Ad Agency, then) merged in 2006 with Draft, which was founded in 1978 as a direct marketing agency Kobs & Brady.
McCann Erickson: Founded in 1911, then H.K. McCann. Got its name because of the merger with A.W. Erickson agency. Erickson made fortune investing in other things besides advertising, such as the company that invented Technicolor film.
Lowe & Partners Worldwide: Frank Lowe, former account man for CDP, set up Lowe Howard-Spink in 1981. Merged with Ammirati Puris Lintas in 2000.
R/GA: Founded in 1977 by brothers Richard & Robert Greenberg (then known as R/Greenberg Associates). The agency is known for restructuring its focus every nine years, being currently in fourth cycle as an advertising agency with digital focus. It started as computer-assisted film-making company.

5. Dentsu
Originally founded in 1901 as Japan Advertising Ltd. and Telegraphic Service Co. by Hoshiro Mitsunaga. Changed its name to Dentsu in 1955. Dentsu has a near monopoly in the Japanese market, being double the size of the biggest competitors. Dentsu means electronic communications in Japanese, if I have understood correctly.

6. Havas
Havas was originally the first news agency created in 1835.That Havas was acquired by Vivendi in 1998 and is now known Vivendi Universal Publishing. The advertising group Havas is actually former subsidiary of original Havas (Havas Advertising, formerly Eurocom) but bought the rights for the name Havas in 2004.

Euro RSCG: Roux Seguela was founded in 1968. RSCG was founded in 1978 by Bernard Roux, Jacques Seguela, Alain Cayzac, Jean- Michel Goudard. Havas advertising arm Eurocom bought RSCG, thus the name nowadays.

Some legendary agencies:

Wieden & Kennedy: The agency was founded by Dan Wieden and David Kennedy, who met while working in McCann Ericsson on Nike Account. Nike become their first client and is their client still (with brief stints elsewhere, like Chiat/Day). Is surprisingly still independent.
Droga5: Founded by David Droga, Andrew Essex, Judd Merkel and Duncan Marshall in 2006. Do not know where the five comes to the name. The agency behind Jay-Z Decoded campaign.
CP+B: Founded in 1965 by Sam Crispin in Miami, although got famous much later when Chuck Porter & Alex Bogusky joined the company in 1988 as partners. Currently only Porter is part of the company. The agency behind Subservient chicken.
PKL: Papert Koenig Lois was the first agency that went public in 1962.
Wells Rich Greene: Stewart Greene, Dick Rich & Mary Wells founded the agency behind the “I love New York” slogan and logo. Later was bought by BDDP, and was closed in 1998.
BDDP: French agency founded by Jean-Claude Boulet, Jean-Marie Dru, Marie-Catherine Dupuy and Jean-Pierre Petit. After couple of rounds of mergers is eventually nowadays TBWA Paris and Jean-Marie Dru is the chairman of TBWA Worldwide. Dru is the inventor of disruption.
CDP: One of the most legendary british agencies Collet Dickenson Pearce was founded in 1960 on april fools day by John Pearce, Ronnie Dickenson & John Collett. Was the springboard for many advertising (and other) legends such as Sir Alan Parker & Ridley Scott. Was closed in 2000 and acquired by Dentsu.
Boase Massimi Pollitt: Stanley Pollitt, Martin Boase & Gabe Massimi founded the agency. Stanley Pollitt is said to be the inventor of the account planning function. In eighties BDDP tried to buy the agency, but it merged with DDB, the company was a while called BMP DDB (a name to remember) and is now DDB London.
Chiat/Day: Originally Jay Chiat & Associates, founded in 1968. Despite or because of the reputation of rebellious and pushing-the-envelope creativeness, the agency was also one of the first agencies alongside Goodby, Silverstein & Partners to introduce account planning in American agencies. Now part of the TBWA.
AMV: Abbot Mead Vickers was founded in 1977 by Peter Mead, Adrian Vickers & David Abbott and celebrated that with an and saying “Watch out Colletts, we’re only £34 million behind you.” Agency was sold to BBDO in 1991 and AMV BBDO became the biggest UK advertising agency in 1997.
HHCL: Robert Howell, Steve Henry, Axel Chaldecott & Adam Lury founded the agency in 1987. Was voted “Agency of the decade” in 2000 by Campaign magazine. The agency behind “You Know When You’ve Been Tango’d”-ads which were on heavy rotation when I used to watch MTV. Company was closed in 2007.
Ammirati Puris Lintas: Aargh, my head starts hurting reading this merger history (it is so freaking complicated). Read the whole history from the AdAge Encyclopedia.

Sources:
Mark Tungate: Adland: A Global History Of Advertising (Highly recommended book of the advertising history)
AdAge Encyclopedia

Luckily we have gotten some new agencies which are not following the tradition of odd acronyms (Naked, Mother, Inferno, Possible, etc.). Hopefully that will be the way of the future.

That being said, if I ever found an agency, it will have my initials on it.

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Jun 23 2012
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Advertising

When to Take My Name Off the Door

Leo Burnett “When to take my name off the door” from Lobo on Vimeo.

Leo Burnet´s retirement speech in 1967 is one of the classic speeches in the advertising. Even after 45 years it still resonates:

When you forget that the sheer fun of ad making and the lift you get out of it – the creative climate of the place – should be as important as money to the very special breed of writers and artists and business professionals who compose this company of ours – and make it tick.

To celebrate Leo Burnett Worldwide 75th anniversary in 2011 Leo Burnett Iberia & Director Company Lobo produced this nice animation piece.

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Jun 22 2012
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Digital Strategy, Social Media

Pinterest Generation: Lazy & Self-Obsessed

Pinterest drives more sales than Facebook
Pinterest drives more traffic than Google+, LinkedIn & YouTube combined
Pinterest hit the 10 million unique visitors faster than any other other site in history

In retrospect, it is totally obvious that Pinterest has become so huge. It is such a great representation of the current times we are living in:

1. Many want to express themselves, few want to invest time in it

I think the main drivers in the rise of is the Pinterest is the growing amount of self-obsession combined with the laziness typical with many people. It is perfect tool for the modern man, who evaluates how his success by the number of likes and comments. Or values celebrity over his own health. Pinterest gives you easy tools for self-expression.

If we think about evolution of self-expression in the Internet, it has become more and more easier. The tools which have provided the solutions to the lazy users have been winners.

When people had own websites, you had to have technical skills to create them. Then came blogs, which reduced the technological barrier, but you still had to spend lots of time to actually write the blogs. Twitter made the expression even easier with the character constraint. Then came instant photo applications. Also social networks have undergone the same transition. MySpace had much more opportunities to pimp your profile, but Facebook showed that usually people do not want to spend time creating something themselves. When it was easy enough, everyone started to share what they had for lunch and started to also think that someone really cares.

Pinterest frees you from creating anything yourself.

In Pinterest you do not have to be a content creator, you just pin. You can grab whatever content you feel represents you and use it. No need to write even 140-characters or take photo. You are just a curator. Pinterest did to web services, what mash-ups did to music.

2. Visual learning and expression

The last centuries have been run by written word. Now we are moving more towards visual world, where we increasingly learn & get our information from visual sources. Pinterest is good example of it. Other main players in this change is Instagram (no wonder that Facebook bought it) and YouTube.

3.Interest-driven network

Underlying philosophy in Facebook is that we are defined by our social connections. Facebook works actively to blur all the lines of your different personas to merge it as one in their network. Pinterest on the other hand is build around our interests, which gives its huge opportunity for certain target groups. The great thing in the Internet was the opportunity to be something else or something more than your everyday self. Pinterest gives that opportunity back to us. If Facebook is reflection of who we are, Pinterest might be more of about what we want to be. Usually the hobbies tell much more about people than their CV.

The future succesful web services are build on the laziness and the self-obsession of the users.

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Jun 21 2012
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Advertising, Marketing Strategy

Do we need advertising awards?

As Cannes Lions is still on the full swing, it is time for the annual debate of the significance of advertising competitions. Those, who have won actually something, stress the importance and the correlation between awarded works and the business success. Those, who did not got awarded, categorize competitions as mere beauty competitions which awards only artsy-fartsy scam work.

Although never won in Cannes (yet), I still tend to fall more in the favour of competitions for the following reasons (including certain caveats as well):

1. Advertising awards are mostly internal rewards
We advertising people appear to be self-absorbed, self-confident and full of ourselves. The reality is that we are self-bashing, self-critical and always unhappy with our work. Many times we need someone from the outside to tell that work is sometimes quite ok. And there is nothing wrong in getting recognition once a year from the hard work you have done.

Of course, we should always remember to tell our colleagues when they have done good job as well. And for the managers: it is good to give raises for your best talent also before they threat to leave your company.

Competition is always competition. For certain types of people that competition brings out best out of them. Also for certain people, the competition is the best motivation. Not for the all though.

2. The events are a good way to strengthen the client relationship.
Majority of clients could not care a less about trophies you have. The awards are part of the reputation you have, but not even the main part of that. Awards are not the new business tool that many claim they are. However being on those events is a good opportunity to strengthen your client relationship. It is nice to be in more relaxed setting and celebrate your annual achievements.

If you happen to win, remember that big part of the victory is because of the client. Without daring client you are not able to do daring work. Remember to give respect to the client as well.

3. Truly groundbreaking work gets always recognition.
I do not believe in making work to win awards. First of all,that approach probably will not win any awards. Second, if you do that, you are totally in the wrong business. At the end of the day we are in the business of seducing consumers to buy more stuff from the brands we work with. If you do not get kick out of that, I recommend changing jobs.

I believe in making work to solve client´s problems in the most effective & creative way. And there is high correlation between those ways. If you aim for that and keep pushing the envelope, the fame will follow eventually. I bet that there will be no weak work in this year´s list of Titanium Lions winners. At least last year all the awarded work was outstanding. You should concentrate your efforts on doing work like that. Making scam work or trivial non-profit campaigns just gets you further away from the real mastery.

Not all the good work gets awarded though. Nearly all the advertising competitions tend to favor certain types of creativity. This might make you live in an illusion, that it is the only type of creativity there is. As a planner, I always try to find the most effective solution for the consumers. Sometimes the best solution might be so straightforward and simple that it is not awarded because of that. Then your reward materializes on the cash register.

However, if you always concentrate on solving the brand problems on the most relevant & creative way possible, you will get plenty of opportunities to win awards along the road.

4. Competition entry requires marketing talent
It requires talent to make your entry pop out among thousands of other entries. You have to engage during the first seconds of your case video. You have to be simple and make your point across fast. You have to delight the jury with great insight and sparkling creativity. Also you have to make sure your PR works before the competition. If people recognize your work, it has much more better changes to succeed in the competition.

All the things mentioned before are part of the capabilities good agency should have and be selling to its customers. If you cannot do enticing case video, can you do good marketing?

Advertising awards should be reward for doing groundbreaking work, not the ultimate goal.

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Jun 20 2012
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Insight, Planning

Anatomy Of An Insight: Nike Barbershop

How do you know an ad gots a good insight?

When you see it, you find it so obvious that you nearly start beating yourself in the head, because you hadn´t used it before. I bet I wasn´t the only one with that reaction when I saw this Balotelli ad.

The main Nike Euro Film was great in all its megalomaniac glory and secret tunnels, but I appreciated the subtle irony in this Nike Barbershop ad & Facebook app.

The insight is simple: footballers have stupid personal-looking hairdos.

The better footballer, the more odd hairstyle. Or you do not even have to be so good, you should be remembered at least from your hair. I remember my first favourite player was Maradona (cool hair) then Ruud Gullit (even cooler hair), Valderrama (The most epic hair ever) and then Cantona (Ordinary hair, but super cool collar). Balotelli is not my favourite player, but he definitely holds it own on the hairdo front.

Good insight is someone that everyone knows, but no one has dared to use it yet.

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Jun 18 2012
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Advertising, Marketing Strategy

Professional Madness

What separates advertising industry from every other business?

We are not duplicating our previous successes.Instead of consulting company who finds a good way to work around certain problem and then duplicates it to the other clients as many times as possible. The business model is that the every new iteration of the same project requires much less working resources, but the selling value is quite the same.

Like John Hegarty said, we do not have a warehouse full of great ads. We start from the scratch every single time.Your past successes only prove that you have had success before. It is not an indicator of the future success.

That is why you seldom get bored in a good advertising agency. Every project is a completely new challenge and you are trying to come up with something completely new. It is challenging and rewarding. It is also one of the reasons why even the best agencies do not hit home runs every single time. Coming up with a typical solution is similar as failure.

From traditional business perspective it is complete madness, of course.

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Jun 17 2012
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Digital Strategy, Marketing Strategy, Strategy

No Digital Strategy

I had this presentation couple of months ago in Finland talking about the need of having digital in the core of your business and not as a separate unit.
Actually this presentation has quite bittersweet tone for me because the organizer of the event went bankrupt and I only got like 30% of my speaking fee. First time that ever happened.
Well hopefully you enjoy this:
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Jun 16 2012
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Marketing Strategy, Planning

What is Stand-up Strategy?

First of all, I am quite sure that I have not come with the term myself. I must have heard it somewhere. Do not remember whom, so I just stole it as a name for my blog. If you are offended, then poor luck. This is advertising after all.

Stand-up strategy does not mean that it is necessarily funny, although you have to have certain kind of humor to be in this business.

Instead for me stand-up strategy is about these five things:

1. Standing up instead of sitting down.

Marketing strategists and planners have got themselves in trap.

We, as a profession, have been on a road to just become poor man´s management consultants. We have tried to complicate things, instead of simplifying them. We have estimated our value of the number of slides we have made or how thorough creative brief we have done. Those things do not matter.Only thing that matters is the quality of the work and the bottom line of the company.

We have to get out from the computer to meet the people, find the insights and understand the behavior of the people who might someday be the customers.

So get of your seat and start doing things.

2. Intuition and point-of-view is what separates you from others.

Google has replaced the average planners.

There was a time when information was scarce and planner could make himself worthwhile by just having the access to information. Those days are long gone. Information is abundant and nearly everyone has the access to the same information channels.

That is why the Planner has to stand up and tell also what he feels and what is his point-of-view.  Not saying that there is a shortcut for digesting all the information. We have to do our homework more than ever.

Read blogs, magazines, books.Watch movies, tv & documentaries. Talk with colleagues, peers, consumers & influenceres.

But those are just starting point. Having the information is only about competitiveness of today´s planner. Competitive advantage comes from your point-of-view. That is the biggest asset you have and you have to cultivate it.

After careful evaluation of all the information & data, act on your gut-feeling.

3. Planning is translating business to creativity.

Planning is a service function. You provide the springboard for creatives for the creative leap. You help account executives to sell more. Only thing tangible what is left from our work is well-performing company financially and creatively. People can live with incomplete creative brief, but they cannot leave with incomplete creative product.

Good planner is a bipolar person. He gots kicks out of creativity. He also gots kick out the business side of things. Usually he has had a hand on both of these crafts. Planning is the most rewarding but the least-respected craft in advertising. Are you ready to take on the task?

Do not trust planner who has not sold a project or not done an ad. 

4. Combining insight & behavior is the key to the success.

How many fresh new insights have there been in beer category lately?

It is still crucial to find the soul of the brand and go as deep to the customer´s head as possible. However, you cannot just push your message nowadays and hope to spark some kind of emotion. You have to lure your brand to everyday life of the people. I do not understand the separation between traditional and digital planners. If planner does not understand digital channels nowadays, he or she should be out of job. And same goes to otherwise, knowing all the latest social media channels is worthless if you do not have the knowledge of the good old art of persuasion. Even though technology has evolved we as a people are driven by quite simple things. Such things as sex, greed & jealousy.

You have to know how customer feels and how he behaves.

5.We have to reinvent this whole ad agency stuff.

I hate silos. That is why this whole departmental thinking of account-creative-planning is quite absurd for me. Our business is quite simple if you think about. We are on the quest of finding the emotional connection of the brand and consumer, which on the long run will concretize in the cash register.

Lee Clow put it great:

“We’re supposed to be a creative business, but I think we have been probably the least creative industry in the history of the world in terms of figuring out how to get paid.”

We have to think about deeper how we operate and how we make profit in the future. The collaborator who works closest with the brand, will be succeeding in the future. Will it be an advertising agency is left to be seen?

Learn the history, to know all the rules you are going to break.

These are my rules and if you do not like them I have some others as well.

From this standpoint I will be writing my observation from the industry and the future of planning and advertising as well. Welcome aboard.

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