Benchmarks and setting a strong foundation are key drivers of success. Agencies must recognize their role in serving as an advocate and adding value to the client relationship. Just how do agencies add value to client’s business?

1. Developing and producing creative ideas that are fresh and appropriate.

2. Ensuring that agency disciplines and functions are integrated and that agency teams and divisions collaborate well on behalf of the client.

3. Working in a collaborative way with the client by creating an environment of low egos and high mutual respect.

4. Developing ideas and programs that can be integrated into multiple communication channels.

5. Assigning its best people to the client’s business and making its top executives available when needed.

6. Evaluating brand drivers like awareness, consideration, and purchase intent.

7. Providing guidance and solutions in new media and technologies.

Source: Report on the Agency-Advertiser Value Survey,” American Association of Advertisers and Association of National Advertisers, August 2007.

It is interesting how something so small can be so siginficant.

140…

Perhaps we’re talking about the amount of cash and coin stored in our official custom edition Angry Birds piggy bank. (No such thing exists.)

Maybe one-forty is reflective of the number of tries it takes us to do the perfect push up.

Who knows…

Give someone one hundred and forty dollars and see what happens.

Offer someone the ability to broadcast to the world using only 140 characters and what do we have?

A media revolution!

Twitter has opened up a whole new playing field in terms of building raving fans, engaging with angry customers, sharing information, and networking. Yes…we might be limited to one-forty but the possibilities behind the act of tweeting are numerous.

How are you using twitter?

Today’s newspapers are at a crossroads as they struggle to grasp the concepts and best practices surrounding social media. The world of social media can be a bit tricky to explore as brands move beyond the simple steps of setting up accounts on the more popular networks. Newspapers recognize the popularity of sites such as Twitter and Facebook and are in a rush to add these elements to their own owned media outlets.

However, the bus stops there.

Newspapers are struggling to figure out the role of social media is spreading news, creating awareness, and engaging an audience. An interesting dynamic is the idea or decision on whether or not to allow journalists some room for conversation…and…

“…the continued focus on preventing journalists from being human, or from showing that they have opinions”