Podcast Transcript Part 2

Janet Carlson

This is Off-Road Marketing, the podcast that highlights brands and marketers that dare to travel the road, not taken by others. I'm Janet Carlson. And I'll be your host. This is Episode 12, part 2 of Off-Road Marketing and today's guest, once again, is Greg Clow. The Executive Director of The Agency Contest. And I'm so happy to have you back for a second round, Greg.

Greg Clow

I'm glad to be here.

Janet Carlson

So let's pick up where we left off. We were looking at outstanding elements of creative when you're looking at portfolios. I'm curious, what kind of elements pop out at you that make you say ‘Hey, that work needs to be in our contest?’

Greg Clow

The first thing I do is I look at all the agencies in every city. I go to all the creatives in that city and I ask them, "Who should I be looking at?" And they're very open. They almost all say, "You have to look at these agencies." There is usually a core group of 5 to maybe 10.

I'll look at those and I'll go through their portfolios. I've been through hundreds of portfolios by now. As a side note, we actually have a contest for ad agency websites and portfolios. I think that ad agencies would benefit from looking at the competition because there are some great websites and there are some terrible websites. It is surprising to me that in some cases ad agencies that do such a good job at selling their clients' work do such a poor job of selling their own work.

Janet Carlson

Well, maybe it's a get ‘er done kind of thing, Greg.

Greg Clow

It could be. They say to themselves, "I know I should have a website portfolio. I should do something just to have something."

Janet Carlson

What is it? The shoemaker's kids don’t have shoes. That's not the exact saying, but you know what I mean?

Greg Clow

There are some small agencies that have phenomenal websites. I don't just mean they're attractive to look at, or even that the creative they show is top notch. I'm saying that the agency thought about the flow of the portfolio from the point of view of a person that's coming to see what they have to show for the first time.

In general, I look at an agency website and I look for the work. If the work is not obvious right away, I go on to the next agency. I'm looking for an agency that is proud of their work, wants to show their work, feels that their work shows how great they are, and what they think is important.

That to me is a big deal. A client will look at the portfolio and say, "How does this agency think? Do they believe everything is a joke? Or do they think everything's ultra serious?" Because, you know, they can go both ways. There are some agencies that are very, very flowery. I mean, the colors are fabulous. The art direction is fabulous, but the copywriting is poor. Then there’s the other direction, where you have the exact opposite. So, it's really informative to find out what an agency thinks is good work and good design, and then how they show that off to the best of their ability.

Janet Carlson

So that leads me to another question that just popped into my head. Some of the entries in your contest I see, people react to them, and they're like, "Oh my God, that's amazing work." And some of the entries, people say, "What the hell is that doing here?" So if you can have both of these reactions within the same contest, I'm curious, what's the story with that?

Greg Clow

That's a good question. What happens is that all the entries are taken from the public portfolios of ad agencies. (Professional creatives such as photographers, illustrators, and creative directors are represented by their portfolio home pages.) Therefore each piece that's entered is considered by the creative director and the agency president to be the kind of work that shows off their best creative.

Some of our judges look at the work and say, "That's not my cup of tea." You have to know that clients paid for that piece of creative, each piece that shows up in the portfolio was created by a creative team. And they felt it was their best work. And they're very proud of it.

Janet Carlson

And somebody paid for it. So a team endorsed it, presented it, and the client paid for it. So obviously there was a decent sized group of people who said, "Hey, this rocks!"

Greg Clow

Exactly. One thing I found out when I went to business school was that advertising, to a lot of the CEOs, is just a line item. They don't care that much. It's not that important. In fact, during the recession, it might be one of the first things they cut. But, as we know, advertising is very important.

Janet Carlson

One of the things that I've noticed about myself, and I've been in the advertising business since I was 21, it’s something that's you react to. I still get our local newspaper. I enjoy that. It's interesting to look at the ads in there. So when I look at the ads, I do have a reaction. And I do think to myself, that's really wonderful, or that's really terrible. There’s not a whole lot of room in between. I think advertising people have an eye for that. But it is personal because there could be a creative director who reads the same ad and says, "Well, actually, Janet, I think that's, that's pretty good." And we just have to agree to disagree, I suppose.

Greg Clow

Right. I think this goes back to the old direct marketing axiom that every communication works for about 2% of the audience, which explains the 98% who typically don't like that work. So every time you look at a communication, you have to put yourself in the shoes of the person that it was intended for. And some people are good at that. And some people are not so good. I think to be a good creative director, you have to be very good at that.

Janet Carlson

Do you ever get submissions from in-house marketing groups? So for example, an agency that lives within a company, or is it always external advertising agencies?

Greg Clow

I would like to figure out a way to make that work.

Janet Carlson

It's two different camps, and I think most people see it as not really the same.

Greg Clow

There are a lot of people who leave the agency world to go to the client side, and back and forth. So I'd like to make that work, but I haven't exactly figured out how to do it.

Right now the constraints that I have put on myself is that I work only with Linked In because they are my vetting tool. They tell me who is real and who isn't. I only let people become judges that have biographies on Linked In. So I can tell that they're real people within the community. People ask me why I haven't gone to Facebook or why I haven't gone to Instagram? In truth, there are a hundred venues to try. But there's only so much time in the day. So I focus on Linked In and the certain number of categories that show well in the online format.

Janet Carlson

When I was looking at the work probably six months ago and I was judging copywriters. I thought, you know what, I'm gonna judge this category. So I did. And it was fascinating to see what jumped out at me.

Interestingly enough there was a portfolio by Cam Day for Wyoming tourism. I fell absolutely in love with it. I thought it was the coolest thing I'd ever seen. I mean, I had a reaction like, holy shit, that's epic!

I went to his website, and I reached out to him. Since then we've gotten to be friends. I found it fascinating that a very busy guy and a veteran of the industry would respond to my email. Within a day we were talking on the phone and I said, "Why would you respond to me?" He says, "Anybody who says that my work is the shit, I'm gonna call right away. It's not like you get that kind of call every day."

So I really appreciate the fact that you are putting people out there. I would've never met Cam Day otherwise, and I would've really missed out on something.

So it just made me appreciate the craft again. I think that's, that's one of the things that I wanted to give you feedback on was that, you know, we do get judgey and I understand why it's because my own team will bring work and we're tough on each other. We try to be kind, it, it's tough love, I suppose. But if I write copy and it sucks, and my team calls me out on it, I don't take it personally. It's about the work and it's about delivering to the client. I think most of those folks understand that. But I would assume that most people, if they have submitted that work, they are proud of it. Does it always rock my boat? Not always, but I do appreciate the fact that you're bringing back the respect. I think that's really important and I'm going to think more kindly when I'm looking at different things, like I'm always looking at the ads and sometimes I tear them out. I'm harder on pharmaceutical ads. I gotta be honest. Because the pharmaceutical ads make me crazy.

I'm curious if you've ever done tests with female led agencies or minority agencies or agencies that have X amount of people or who only have staff over 50. I'm just kind of making up all different kinds of categories, but I'm just wondering if you're doing contests of that kind?

Greg Clow

No, we haven't done that. Part of that is because I think that great ideas can come from a 2 person shop or a 1000 person shop. And I don't look at people as being different. So I definitely don't do anything based off of male or female. I did have a comment from one young woman where she asked why we don't have more female copywriters or art directors profiled. And I said, Would you like to be profiled? Unfortunately, I never heard from her again.

I'm happy to have anybody who wants to participate, participate. The more, the merrier. One thing that is very different about The Agency Contest is that there is no due date. There is no entry deadline. You don't have the situation where someone says, "I've gotta get it done by Friday!" I found that "no deadline" is a hard concept for agency people to stick in their mind. They figure that if there's no deadline, then they can put it off.

That's difficult. I haven't figured out how to make that work yet. We have ongoing voting and the voting goes on every day of the year. It doesn't make a difference when you vote. Just vote. That is the most important thing for people to do.

Janet Carlson

Well, I don't want to lose my place on the Judge Leader Board, Greg. I mean, I keep an eagle eye on that. Don't think for a minute I don't. I think I sent you an email at one time because I put in a few votes and my votes weren't tallied yet. Talk about competitive.

Greg Clow

I've gotten a few comments like that. I wanted to go back to Cam (Day) because he's an independent copywriter and he does a lot of great work. He's currently competing in our copywriter's contest. He has some great work to show. The neatest thing is the fact that the two of you got together through The Agency Contest. That is special to me. That's the whole point behind The Agency Contest. You get our community to come together and work together and discover each other. It makes me happy.

Janet Carlson

I am determined to work with Cam. He has also published a book called "Chew with Your Mind Open." For anybody in the business, if you haven't read his book, it is phenomenal. I've been around the block a few times, but let me tell you, I was underlining stuff. It actually made me want to raise my game. I don't care how long you've been in the advertising business. There's something to be learned from this. And Cam is a little bit older than me and anytime I can learn something from somebody who's been around longer than me, then I'm happy to do it. And if it's somebody younger than me, I don't care. Everybody has something to teach us, but Cam's book I thought was really epic and interesting.

And look, Greg, I feel like you're doing a great service for creatives. I think you're doing it in a kind and caring, and professional way. I love how you're doing it in a respectful fashion and not kind of, you know, mean spirited way that some of these contests can go.

Greg Clow

Thank you.

Janet Carlson

So I appreciate any time you can bring kindness back into the advertising community. I think it's serving us all.

One of the things I'm gonna do is reach out to more people, and just boldly do it. Why not? I think if you reach out to people and ask, people are very kind about it.

All right, Greg, we probably better wrap up. I'm just curious if you have anything coming up this year that you want to talk about or is kind of exciting you?

Greg Clow

I just want to encourage the listeners to visit the website, www.theagencycontest.com and take a look at what we're doing. Take a look at the open contests, take a look at Janet on the Leader Board and see if you can compete with her! Everyone's on there. I've got some of the top names in advertising as my judges and you can see if you can do better than them.

Janet Carlson  

And people will, you know, if they put themselves out there, that's for sure. Well, that's a wonderful way to end. My thanks to Greg for doing a 2 part podcast with me. You got more than you bargained for! I really appreciate you spending time with me today.

Greg Clow

My pleasure.

Janet Carlson  

So that wraps up part two of our podcast. We'll be back with another episode in two weeks. Until then, look for ways that you can take your brand off-road.