Self-Promotion: When Agencies Show Their Realness, Originality and Truth
Coming up with effective campaigns and strategies for their clients and partners is always a challenge for agencies. Think about it. As a creative, you have a vision, and at times your personal ideas may show up when working on a brief with your creative team. Sometimes your idea, while it may resonate with you personally, doesn’t quite fit the brief or the strategy of the campaign. In this case, you might feel a little disappointed that you weren’t able to “show yourself” within this campaign.
It’s an understandable struggle, but it is also the reality of the workflow and the industry. This is why agencies, brands and networks are given the opportunity to highlight their strengths and creative abilities by showing what they are all about through the Self-Promotion categories at major industry shows (such as the One Show).
It may seem self-explanatory, but the purpose of self-promotion is to give agencies the ability to showcase their own talent and promote themselves by proving that they are the best at what they do, or to simply showcase what makes them unique and what it is about them that makes them stand out.
Naturally, for projects like these, creatives have the potential to go absolutely crazy — in the most positive way possible of course! They can let their strengths and personal ideas flow within a self-promotion campaign, simply because they are working on an idea that represents precisely who they are.
Here are some of our favorite Self-Promotion campaigns that showed their creators’ true, powerful colors:
SNASK (Sweden)
SNASK promote themselves as anti-conventional and nontraditional creatives who believe that staying true to yourself as a progressive agency is an effective strategy. And they love showing it! Their self-promo is a book called Make Enemies & Gain Fans.
The book promotes their work and controversial style in a way that shows how they step outside the box and step over conservative thinking and traditional norms. You can check out — and even purchase — their self-promoted book on Amazon.
Zulu Alpha Kilo
If there’s one thing that an agency might want to promote — something that makes them special and differentiates them from other agencies — it’s definitely not what they are selling, but more likely how they behave when they are selling: we’re talking about character. Character is everything. When you have a charismatic personality, you will be noticed. Zulu Alpha Kilo are truly a great example of that, and they use sarcasm and humor as part of their self-promotion campaigns to prove certain purposes in the advertising/marketing world, such as “Say No to Spec!”
In this campaign, one of their “representatives” went to different businesses trying to convince them to give him free work — the catch being that it was just a comedic act designed to get a reaction and promote the company’s video, along with driving home the point that working for free is a terrible idea and no business should do it.
Ogilvy & Mather
Ogilvy and Mather decided to promote themselves by relying on a simple yet very common struggle that many people face: the mispronunciation of “high-end” or “sophisticated” names. The agency thought, “Why not teach people how to pronounce such names — and why not start with our own?” (Let’s face it: Ogilvy & Mather can be easily mispronounced in many parts of the world — no shade here!)
Given their “sophisticated” name, the agency decided to promote a video featuring a British lord giving step-by-step instructions on how to pronounce “Ogilvy and Mather.” It’s all quite silly, but that’s the point, and naturally, it serves the purpose of the agency promoting themselves and showing their comedic yet sophisticated side to people, given their long equity in the market and their positioning.
Community Films
Sometimes you don’t need to scratch your head too much to promote your agency’s personality to the audience; you may not need a super witty idea or to try too hard to play it smart. All you need is to show the reality of things the way they are.
That’s the case with agency network Community Films, which published a series of videos showing the behind-the-scenes scenario of client-agency relationships and dynamics when they work together on campaigns. For all the creatives, account people, strategists and production folks, this is where we all get together and commiserate about those common client irritations that we all face and that make us cringe so much. Examples include clients who change their minds every second, clients that provide vague and unhelpful feedback and clients who pretend to like our pitch and then go with someone else. Check out this video series — as a creative, you’ll definitely be able to relate.
21 Grams
In order to avoid writing a lot of text to explain a lot of text, we’re just going to leave you with 21 Grams’ copy-based self-promotion ad, created to attract new hires. This is also a prime example of “telling it like it is.” The copy simply states the reality of wanting to do a great ad and, at the end, reveals that the agency is looking for fresh talent.
Division of Labor
Another prime example of copy-based self-promotion ads comes from San Francisco–based agency Division of Labor, which warns employees not to surpass limits with coworkers.
BBDO West Africa
Sometimes, striking visuals can be a great representation of an agency’s mentality and way of thinking. Take, for example, BBDO West Africa’s visual campaign of Striking Thoughts. The concept perfectly represents their boldness and work mentality.
Nothing pleases creatives more than being able to represent themselves and their agencies in these kinds of campaigns. What about you? Do you have any ideas for how you might shape your self-promotion campaign given your company’s personality? Why not start drafting your concept?
