The BlackSheep Marketing Blog

The Microscope, Part I

 

Hello and welcome to a new regular feature here at the BlackSheep Blog: The Microscope. In each installment, we will put an ad under the -- you guessed it -- and see if it is really as good as it looks.

This new campaign (click to enlarge images) by BBDO New York for Armstrong laminate flooring is pretty snazzy. It's the kind of ad that might get torn out and hung in/on a dorm room/office cube/refrigerator.

Under the microscope, though, you start to wonder: Does the headline imply that laminate flooring looks like the real thing, but performs like a cheap knockoff?

One critic (scroll to read comment) proposes deleting the pesky and ambiguous "only" and suggests the alternate headline: "Looks just like the real thing."

What do you think?

Why We Changed the Website

Some folks have been asking why we changed our Website. They miss the smooth dynamic transitions and captivating movement of the old site. The old site was built in Flash. It was a great way to showcase our cutting edge Flash skills back in 2002. There are two very simple reasons for the change: Measurement & Search.

First, HTML sites are much easier to measure all kinds of nifty Website stats. Second, search engine crawlers love HTML way more than Flash.

Ask us about our Search Engine Optimization services and Website Traffic Analysis & Reporting capabilities for your Website.

When the New Marketing VP Wants to Change Everything

It’s usually the way good accounts go bad. The new VP or Director of Marketing comes in and wants to change everything. Usually she wants to change the ad agency entirely, but that’s another topic. Meanwhile, no one can quite understand why the change.

The email creative is getting noticed and driving great results: Open rate: 39%. CTR: 2.2%. Downloads per Clicks: 77% What’s the problem??!!

Change for the sake of change? Perhaps. But it doesn’t matter. She’s driving now.

The Agency tries to make the case for the campaign because it's only a couple of months old to help the client save money. Unfortunately “making the case” is sometimes confused with some hyper ego-involvement over the creative. Maybe some agencies fight that fight, but not here. We’ll give you as many concepts and programs as you’re willing to pay for – that’s what we do.

But after that, if the Agency wants to keep the relationship, it’s best to shut up, listen, and try to delivery.