It seems that in Belgium, agency people are bothered that advertisers (clients) aren’t following some sort of old “charter” that defined how new business pitches should be conducted.  So they went on a one week strike.

While protesting in the streets, the cooperating agencies also changed their websites to a simple page that explained their frustration with the new process and explained why it was bad for everyone.

That’s crazy.

Look, these agencies are not upset because they get their hopes up, spend some money and do their best work on pitches just to find out that they wasted their time.  Rather, these agencies are upset mainly because they say the clients are inviting too many agencies to pitch, sometimes bringing in ten or more different agencies for one account, which reduces their chances of winning the business down to oh, say 10%.  Egads, what logic!  It’s like advertising pitches are now following a lottery system.

How silly.

Our agency is invited to pitch for business many times throughout the year.  In fact, we work very hard just to make sure we’re included in the process.  While I know that math says if ten agencies are involved, each has a 10% chance of winning; however, I can’t help but remember that this logic doesn’t apply when I’m at Arlington Park putting ten dollars down on the 25-1 shot in a six horse race.

The truth is that nothing out there is fair and equal.  Heck, I don’t believe there even is a solid universal “truth”.  Really.  Everyone’s realities are so different, how can there be one truth?

So when it comes to pitches, who says the agency people can or should make the rules?  Sure, they could try, but why would any client follow them?  Last I saw, clients liked to have the final say on their accounts and how they are handled, starting from the pitch.

So our goal is to be invited to every pitch.  That’s right, we want to be invited to every single one.  Why not? It cost us nothing really for the invitation, and we get to know a few new contacts. Plus, it’s good for morale.

However, once we’re included in the pitch, it is totally up to us to decide whether we want to participate.  Sometimes the RFP makes it clear that a lot will be expected from us for little in return — unless we win.  Do we take the chance?  How well do we know the client, market and industry?  Who’s in the pitch with us and what are their strengths and weaknesses?  Are we a 25-1 shot, or more even money?

New businesses pitches should be a thrill for agencies.  After all, WE are our client at the time; so we cannot complain that the client made us change this, or the client said they didn’t have the budget for that.  Everything is up to us.  How cool is that?

But advertising is a business, and pitches require time, money and discipline.  You cannot and should not go after everything and anything; therefore, any responsible agency has to decide when to take a chance and when to sit one out.  Often this decision does not come down to money or time, but rather styles and approaches — meaning, do the client and agency mesh?  That to me is the biggest reason we’re hired — we’re on the same page as the client — and it’s the most valuable factor when it comes to determining whether we will pitch an account.

So what do you think about agencies claiming that clients aren’t playing fair?  Think this could happen here in the U.S.?  While agencies certainly are competitive with each other,  I don’t think we’re organized or powerful enough as an industry to pull anything like this off.  And anyway, we’d just look stupid and greedy for trying it.  Plus, U.S. clients know what they’re doing, and most are too busy to waste their own time meeting so many different agencies.

Oh well.  At least I’m proud to be in advertising in this country.

If you’re anything like the average social-networking user, you spent a little more than 5.5 hours total on Facebook and Twitter in December. That’s an enormous 82% bump from that same time last year. Facebook has swelled to about 206.9 million users. That means that Facebook’s population is larger than that of most nations. There are more people on Facebook than in Russia. And Canada. Combined. As for us, a little less than half the United States is currently on Facebook right now at 142.1 million unique visitors. We’re closely followed by Japan at 46.5 million social network users and Brazil with 31.3 million. The top honor for most time spent online goes to Australia at 7 hours a month.

What does this mean? It means that perhaps Facebook should get a chair at the UN. With all seriousness, it obviously means that there’s an enormous, growing user base that just about anyone can reach. However, unlike some forms of advertising, social networking requires companies to develop a message that isn’t self-centered — as most traditional marketing messages are. Because social networking users must voluntarily subscribe to each particular organization’s message, marketers must create a conversation that’s both informative and interesting. Therein lies the most difficult and perplexing problem most companies encounter in trying to reach all these Facebookers and Tweeple.

Good: The Simpsons Coca-Cola Spot
Yes, it was fun seeing the Simpsons do a spot for Coca Cola. But it was schmaltzy and void of any of the acerbic Simpson wit we’ve come to expect. Couldn’t Coca-Cola have allowed the writers to poke a little fun at those big love-fest Coke ads that taught the world to sing?

Better: The Betty White Snickers Spot
Betty White proves she’s as awesome as she ever was. But did you remember this spot was for Snickers? It, like many other Super Bowl ads this year, seemed to rely entirely on a gimmick that overshadows the product. Nevertheless, I do love Betty White.

Best: The David Letterman, Oprah Winfrey and Jay Leno ‘Late Show’ Spot
Clearly, the hands down winner for concept, casting and memorableness. The spot reprises the brilliant 2007 Super Bowl Late Night spot in which Oprah (pulling for the Chicago Bears) and Letterman (pulling for the Indianapolis Colts) are sitting on a couch together, in love, despite their longtime public animosity.

This ad was the brainchild of David Letterman, according to staff members of the “Late Show with David Letterman.” The spot done in a hurry last week. Winfrey and Leno — reportedly wearing a hooded sweatshirt, glasses and a glued on mustache — flew into New York to meet up at the Ed Sullivan Theater where the Late Show is taped. I can only guess the reason Leno and NBC agreed to participate was because they were taking a cue from Letterman himself who recently used his trademark brand of self-deprecating humor to successfully diffuse the fallout from the Employee Benefits Plan he was operating in the suite above the set of the Late Night show. While Leno definitely could use some diffusing of the Conan debacle this just ended up making him look sad — and Letterman a genius.

This month a study published by Greystone.net found that 9 out of 10 hospitals are involved to some degree in social media — but only 1 in 3 has an actual plan in place. Greystone’s two month-long study surveyed over 100 hospital and health system marketers. The study also found some interesting facts:

1. Most hospitals and health networks use fewer than 3 people do social media — and those people are usually from the technology or web department. What does this mean? It means most hospital’s social media programs aren’t run by marketers — probably because those in charge either don’t understand the value or importance of social networks. In many ways social media requires more marketing knowledge than traditional advertising. Instead of developing one large message for thousands of people social media requires you to make thousands of smaller messages for thousands of people — and then interact with them one-on-one.

2. Most hospitals report they aren’t seeing results from social media. I’m sure after reading the first point you’ll be able to guess the reason behind this one. If you don’t create an effective program and allow it to be run by knowledgeable people, you can’t expect to see results. Only 12.5% of those surveyed said they were experiencing success with social media. The results of other more finite goals are pretty much what you would expect. Only 16.7% said they had been successful with community relations, 8.7% said they had success with customer service and employee engagement and only 4.7% said social media helped with crisis management.

So if hospitals aren’t using the tools of social media (or even staffing them) correctly it’s no wonder they’re not experiencing results. Especially when social media is only one facet of a full online marketing plan.

Above A sample of a graph that is included in our Spark Report. We track every single spike and dip in traffic and attribute it to a specific action, event or link.

Social media isn’t enough on it’s own to get results. We’ve designed a comprehensive online marketing program called Sparking. It includes social media — but social media can’t work by itself. Before we begin we meet with our clients to determine their goals. Then we develop a comprehensive plan that combines social media, interactive marketing, blogging, content creation, online events, advertising and reputation management all into one neat and powerful little package.

That seemed a little early to me so did a little digging through the Internet Archive. While Feburary 4, 2004 may have been Facebook’s incorporation date — the date it was officially conceived — it didn’t go live until sometime between April 8, 2005 and August 6, 2005 — so sayeth the most excellent Internet Archive Wayback Machine. So have a very happy unbirthday, Facebook! (Today’s my unbirthday too!) Up until then the Facebook domain name was registered to something called AboutFace.

Way back in the summer of 2005 Facebook was called, “The Facebook” and was listed as “A Mark Zuckerberg production.” It, as many of you remember, was limited to only a limited group of colleges and universities. Now Facebook has exploded to 350 million registered users, 175 of which aren’t just active monthly — but every single day. That’s about the same number of people in the countries of Great Britain, France and Italy combined.

Check out the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine — it’s pretty fun.

The key to effective Social Media marketing is not the number or quality of Social Sites you create.  Rather, the real work is driving people to your sites so they can be engaged.  After all, just because you build it, doesn’t mean anyone will see it.

So while it’s important to create and manage your sites effectively, it’s also imperative that you promote those sites everywhere you possibly can.  Everywhere.

Company emails go out 24/7 to vendors, customers, coworkers, etc.  While the employee’s signature line is normally not thought of as a place to sell, it is a place to promote.  This is evident in the number of emails that come across with the signature line that says something like “Please save our planet.  Only print this email if absolutely necessary.”

But rather than just promoting your “green” stance, why not also provide links to your company’s social media sites?  It’s not hard, and they do generate clicks.  You will need  a programmer to do this, but it’s not that hard.  And once it’s done, it’s done.  Every email that goes out will have links back to your sites for all to see.

Here’s an image of my digital signature that is always at the bottom of my emails.  Clicking on the image will take you to my social media page that lists all my links.  Try it.  Then try it with your business.  It really works.

Playing this game is not only good family fun and even good party fun, but it also gives you the correct lyrics to all these songs that we’ve heard often, but never really understood fully.  In fact, it wasn’t until 20 years after the song was released that my good friend found out that it’s not “Light in the storm house” (whatever that means), but rather “Ridin’ the storm out”.  Fortunately, he only sang this in the car by himself.

After seeing the lyrics to a few songs and realizing they still didn’t make sense, I set out on a mission to understand what the writer meant.  I found quite a few sites that had user reviews and interpretations, but couldn’t find the artists’ meanings anywhere.  Then I found it at SongFacts.com

This site has a lot of content, and features quotes from the artists about the songs, as well as user generated information about the artists and what they meant.

So next time you’re wondering what the words are to a song, or what the artist means, go to SongFacts.com

I’m sure you noticed last week that women started posting a one word color on their Facebook status. My wife even posted hers. I remarked about how it’s funny the useless things people do in order to “spread awareness” for a cause. Well it appears the whole meme was a scam. A silly, lighthearted, harmless and somewhat fun scam, but a scam nonetheless.

It started with an e-mail, vaguely attributed to several different breast cancer groups. It encouraged women to post their bra color, but not tell men what the color meant. One of the groups credited was the Susan G. Komen Foundation. John Hammarley, spokesman for the foundation told the Washington Post, “It would be nice to claim credit for this, but we really have done nothing.”

It wasn’t long before women were posting “pink,” “white,” “nude.” and other colors in their status from Philadelphia to Tokyo. The meme quickly spread all over the world. Individuals in Nigeria, Spain, India perpetuated the scam with translations. In fact, in the UK a version of the meme used the British spelling of “colour.”

Over the weekend someone even decided to create a spinoff meme: “URGENT! FACEBOOK VIRUS ALERT,” the subsequent mass status update reads. “An e-mail recently went out to women asking them to post the color of their BRA. THIS IS A VIRUS. To fix it, you must remove your bra, then go to > Settings > Enable Webcam > Record Movie. Please re-post to your status message.”

But there is an upside to this. The Susan G. Komen Foundation had been struggling to develop their Social Media program — and this meme gave them the support they needed to lift their sagging membership in their Facebook group. On Friday morning membership in their Facebook group had only 135 fans. As of this moment, Monday morning, their group has blossomed to a healthy 141, 602.

In way, I think this scam is a beautiful thing. (No, not in the debaucherous way.) It’s a beautiful real-life example of how a little creativity can use the power of social media to create a spark that ignites people to participate in a concept or idea. It’s the kind of thing we do every day.

You can make a donation to the Susan G. Komen Foundation here.

We spend more on medical care per person in the United States than any other country. But that probably isn’t news to you. Here’s the bombshell: our life expectancy is shorter here than in most other developed (and many developing) nations. Why? Well one reason may be the way our health insurance is structured. We have a “fee-for-service” system. That means our insurance isn’t really insurance in the way that we carry insurance for our cars or homes. Our health insurance helps pay for regular appointments, immunization shots and other routine procedures.

The January issue of National Geographic features the graphic we’re showing below. It summarizes four main components of the problem: cost per person, universal access vs no universal access, life expectancy and ease of access. For example, seeing a doctor in Japan where it costs only $2,781 per person (versus $7,290 in the United States) is much easier than it is here — and helps people live over a decade longer.