Why Ad Agencies Can’t Sell
January 5th, 2005 by Bob Bly
My good friend Rich Armstrong, one of the top freelance DM copywriters in the country, is no fan of big ad agencies and their creative approaches to direct marketing.
“I don’t think I’ve seen anything quite as frightening as the article in Direct, ‘Hot Creatives,’ in which a group of big agency creative directors were invited to sit around and talk about the state of the direct marketing business.”
Richard says that what made him tremble was:
1. Many of the folks just switched from general advertising a few years ago.
2. Direct response is a word-driven business, and a lot of the panelists were primarily art directors.
3. Only one of them seemed to know who the late, great Bill Jayme was.
4. Another of the panelists seriously talked about their plan to “phase out the letter from direct mail packages.”
Richard concludes: “Thank God most of the real direct marketing in this country continues to be done in-house by clients who have products to sell and the top freelance copywriters and artists they hire to help.”
This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 5th, 2005 at 9:32 am and is filed under Direct Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
January 5th, 2005 at 9:50 am
With all due respect, John, sounds like a hyenas Vs buzzards conflict.
January 5th, 2005 at 10:10 am
I believe the significant between “big ad agencies and their creative approaches to direct marketing” and direct mail “done in-house by clients who have products to sell” is that big advertising agencies are not skilled or staffed by sales and revenue-thinking people.
Direct mail is most often used in an effort to sell. Big advertising agencies are geared towards creating awareness, establishing a brand, and positioning a company or product. In my experience, big ad agencies do not think in terms of compelling people to act and buy…in-houe coptwriters do.
January 5th, 2005 at 5:47 pm
It’s been my experience that creativies at big ad agencies do not know how nor do they want to write sales letters. Sales letters are not glamourous and they tend to want to do glamourous things that might bring them an award — not that awards sell stuff for clients.
January 6th, 2005 at 1:32 pm
I just had to leave a comment - I got a direct mail mini-zine today… from you! (’Retire this year!’ for the AWAI) Looking forward to seeing how you and your crew writes long copy. Happy new year, by the way.
January 8th, 2005 at 3:53 pm
Creative Advertisers can’t sell because they’re on a different performance incentive than direct-response advertisers. In other words, they can’t sell because they’re not invited to sell. They see their work as involving a different set of payoffs and rewards than copywriters do. Where creative advertisings see their work as a blank canvas, copywriters see it as a blank check. That is the critical distinction to be made.
February 3rd, 2005 at 12:50 pm
“It’s not creative unless it sells.”
Freelance Copywriter who loves to sell.
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April 8th, 2009 at 8:42 pm
Copy writers are closer to the product, the profit margins, the sales process, and the results (inc. testing)
The “big-guy” agencies, in my experience, do ‘pretty’, and ‘creative’ awareness campaign stuff, and have done for so long a shift to direct marketing campaigns and copy writing may be too big to expect success quickly.
I am off to talk to my ‘results focussed’ copy writer…
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