welcome back/top ten advertising agencies

Welcome back from the summer!

My teacher has assigned us a blog from another class, but it has to be independent. As I want to continue this one, I will post the posts from that blog to this one as well as add in a few extras here an there!

According to the textbook, Integrated Marketing Communications in Advertising and Promotion by Terence A. Shimp, the top ten U.S. ad agencies are as follows:

1. J. Walter Thompson
2. Leo Burnett Worldwide
3. McCann Erickson Worldwide
4. BBDO Worldwide
5. Grey Worldwide
6. DDB Worldwide
7. Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide
8. Foote, Cone, & Belding Worldwide
9. Y&R Advertising
10. Publicis Worldwide

I took the time to visit a few of the websites. The first two websites I visited were the top two ad agencies'. The commercial that caught my eye on the J. Walter Thompson site (http://www.jwt.com/) was the MTV campaign to raise awareness on the forced labor market. The video showed clips of interviews that were posted to a website where people seemed to be talking about supporting forced labor. As the buzz grew on youtube and metacafe, they later sent out pamplets and gave a website that showed what the campaign was really about, which was to raise awareness on the subject. According to the campaign, there are more people in slavery today than there ever have been in history. I believe this gives another, serious, side to MTV's identity. I believe it is a good campaign to run, and very thought out.

Leo Burnett (http://www.leoburnett.com/) had a few advertisements that I liked. Of course, I clicked on the McDonald's links. I found one commercial that I somewhat attached to. It was called Blink and it advertised a quick lunch: McDonald's McRice burger. It related the meal to the fast paced life that society has brought everyone to live in. Although it is a commercial advertising food that is concentrated toward Asians, I believe it does a good job of building a relationship with any viewer who has a TV while creating an association with a very popular food for the target market.

Also, being a pet lover, I liked the few little posters that Leo Burnett had on the website for the Toronto Humane Society. My favorite one depicted a cartoon dog on it that says "I am an excellent source of outside". I believe this connects with people today because as many active people as there are in the world, there are even more that stay inside and play with their new electronics. It shows there are things to do outside of technology, and also cures for older people to stay young. Also, it is interesting to give the impression that we need the animals, while the animals are the ones who need us.

Lastly, I visited the Publicis website (http://www.publicis.com/) because I wanted to see the parent organization to Leo Burnett. However, I was somewhat disappointed in the ads I saw on the site. While the Coca Cola Light commercial and the Ikea commercial were clever, I didn't feel that they had a strong sense of the product they were advertising. Sure, the drink could float because it was so light and the furniture is a good price, but there was nothing else to excite a consumer about the product. Is Coca Cola light that much better for me than regular Coke? The commercial definitely didn't tell me. I also didn't get to see any examples of the furniture at Ikea.

Krystal