Agency.com pulled off a brilliant marketing coup by posting a video of their pitch process to the web in an attempt to win the Subway campaign. I believe they should get the client immediately, because they've totally proven they grasp the online medium. Their video has gotten huge traction (371 blog posts on Technorati and 50,000 YouTube viewings as of this afternoon), because the ad industry is so shocked that their unscientific techniques have been exposed.
I had to laugh this morning when I read the thirtieth comment exclaiming "THIS ISN'T VIRAL" on the AdFreak blog. People are arguing so hard about how viral the Subway video isn't, that it's become one of the most viral pieces of creative within the ad industry I've ever seen. AdAge even featured an article about it today. A Romanian PR guy is blogging about it, for heaven's sake! Talk about viral!
Here's what happened: Agency.com showed the process of coming up with campaign ideas, which to actual professionals looks like a bunch of stupid kids who think they're cool pulling dumb ideas out of their rear ends (which it is). The ad industry is outraged by this very accurate portrayal of exactly how all agencies work. Let's face it, coming up with creative is not a scientific or professional process, as much as agencies pretend otherwise to their clients. In fact, another article in today's AdAge discusses a book put out by the CEO of the Interactive Advertising Bureau, who says "we did not know what we were doing in spending client's money", and officially apologizes to his clients for being full of sh*t. Are the people who expose the Emporer's new clothes at fault here?
So Agency.com posts the video to the web, which is exactly the right thing to do in today's world. It's hands down the best way to get lots of attention for little cost. It's such a no-brainer that anyone who didn't do this with their pitch video would be making a big mistake. As long as there's no confidential information revealed, why not?
But nobody else has thought of doing this yet, and Agency.com is first. It's really an ad for Agency.com, and not for Subway at all, (which is appropriate since Subway isn't paying a dime yet). So everyone else is totally jealous! And they make fun of Agency.com, because they're embarrassed that hipster kids are the DNA of any good creative department. I predict all the critics will be trying their damndest to leverage YouTube for their next campaign. In fact, one agency even tried to ride coattails by creating a video about Agency.com's video. If you bother to watch it, you'll see that making an interesting video is a lot harder than it seems; Coudal's is poorly produced, boring, offensive and falls flat at the end. Another parody collecting views on YouTube is funnier, although I don't appreciate the homophobic undertone.
But here's the clincher: the establishment is scared by the loss of control that putting something "out there" creates. Discussion bubbles up about the risks of putting out content that people might actually talk about. Hopefully Subway gets it: you want people to talk about you. You have to be prepared to let the crowd run with the conversation. If people are talking about you, even making fun of you, you're famous. The better you are, the better your word of mouth will be. And Subway sandwiches are good. In fact, if they're launching a line of wraps and need a tagline, the viral video's line "When we roll, we roll big" is perfect.
Three cheers to Agency.com for having the idea to expose the pitch process to the general public, for having the cojones to relinquish control of the message by giving it to the masses, and for having the creativity to capitalize on the results by jump-starting a new blog. Way to WOMM!
In case u missed it ...
a short 5 minutes movie about Romania :)
http://youtube.com/watch?v=itidLk5Dd3k
Posted by: Dragos Tuta | August 08, 2006 at 04:12 PM