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I’m having a hell week. 

-  1 RFP due Friday

-  1 New RFP to start

-  2 Full Web evaluations due Thursday (and I just found out about them today)

-  All media invoices due to clients by the 15th (that I haven’t had time to touch)

- PURLs training to be done by Thursday 

-  Plus all my other usual job tasks I have to do

If you are unfamiliar of what a Hell Week is at my agency check it.

Thankfully, I’m taking next week off for a few days in Vegas and some much needed non-work time.

Tis the season for agency’s to create useless sites, games and videos. Here are a collection of my favorites thus far this season.

Apptera created their Holiday Card 08 which ties in mobile with the online. Annoyingly you have to go online, then receive a call, go back online after receiving a text, then have to call in again. At least they can track when each person drops out of the process and build a database and demonstrates their mobile capabilities. 

First Round Capital rallied the companies they fund to create their Holiday Video. Hilarious to watch these folks dance around…my personal favorite is at 0:55 two guys from Gnip who look terribly awkward.

R/GA created a site where you can Tattoo Santa or Tat the Fat. Something about giving Santa a tramp stamp just doesn’t seem right to me…

Wagner Design Associates created a pretty basic online card that’s simple but cool.

You can play virtual White Elephant with Preston Kelly. I opened a can of peaches but stole a Wii Fit, then lost my Wii and stole a bottle of Grey Goose. Gifts will be awarded according to what each player possesses when the game ends at approximately 12:00 pm Central Standard Time on Friday, December 19th, 2008

AKQA created one of my favorite videos this holiday season…musical microwaves with a holiday beat

Colle+McVoy created a 3D site called SnowdIn, I’ve sent away for my 3D glasses but have not yet received them.

You can make a wish with  in their Snowflake Wonderland (site takes a lot of memory to run, so it might slow you down) and check out what others have wished for!

I bought my car from a dealership client.

Worst. Decision. Ever. 

The car pretty much sucks. In the first 6 months the check engine light came on 3 times and the second time flat out broke down the morning I was headed up to LA for the weekend. The problems were all generally the same (involving an engine coil that is a known defect in the year and make of my car) and each time I was told it wouldn’t happen again.

I later disovered that the brand’s policy to fix this well-known defect is not to replace the coils until the car is brought in 4 times, purely because their assholes. I didn’t need a 4th time, by the 3rd time I was frustrated and disappointed. 

It was a horrible experience; customer service was astrocious and they brushed their hands of me by saying “well the brand says we can’t do anything, so you’re really not our problem”. It took me dropping the name of the agency principal to get the approporate level of treatment. While I appreciate the fact that I had the connection to get treated well, I couldn’t help but wonder what would have happened if I didn’t have that. 

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Clearasil has been around forever.  

Does their product work? No. 

Is this spot fantastic? Absolutely!

Who is their AOR?

Experienced an RFP writing bender late last night but realized it was time to stop typing after this all too honest section of our Methodology appeared on screen. 

Execute

During the “getting shit done” phase of our methodology we will take the research, timeline and plan and actually do work ,with your approval of course. We will run media schedules, track results, reconcile invoices and we will bill you for a lot admin time and earn the bulk of our commission during this phase. We also bill you for actual media placed with as fat of a markup as we think we can get away with. We will take trips to see you in Sacramento with big shiny reports to assure you that you made the right choice. We will personally go out and make sure people are using your product, even if we have to pay them to do so. 

We will make any necessary changes and alterations to our plans and timelines no matter how much it pains us to do so because of your knee jerk reactions and budget cuts. We will learn to deal with your temper tantrums, ridiculous deadlines and fear of change. We’ll also perfect our impressions of you, hire an intern to do any of the difficult work on the account and rename Friday Happy Hour “To Let’s Get Shitfaced because of XXX Hour.”

This week has been crazy and with 3 RFPs due in the next 3 weeks, it will not be getting better anytime soon. Ugh I thought Q4 was supposed to be slow in the ad world! 

At times like these my only comfort if BoogieBoogiehedgeHog….ENJOY!

As the recession continues to kill of the ad industry, there are a lot of blog postings about how to make sure you are not one of those laid off. While I don’t count myself as any sort of expert as I’m only 25 with less than 4 years of experience in this industry, I was able to acquire a job at an agency with no openings and I’ve been able to grow with my firm.

Based on my experience these are my 3 tips.

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As an industry we fail miserably in our own marketing and advertising. No where is that more epic then in our agency websites. I’ve been working on the agency website redo here, so I’ve been scouring the web for ideas on our own site. Most agencies sites are ridicolously complicated and lame and because who doesn’t love lists so here are some pointers I’v compiled from my research!! 

1)  Your site should not take more than 2 seconds to load. I don’t care how cool it is 4 mintues later, I don’t have the patience or time.

2) Do not include sound effects. Ever. I don’t care if you have a mute or stop button, if I wanted to listen to a power ballad or techno jam while I looked through your site I would turn on my i-pod. 

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On the short plane trip to the DMA I was catching up on some industry news via AdWeek. I read probably the most disheartening “the economy sucks” story since the crisis started to be big news.  

The day before Wachovia was bought out by Wells Fargo, it awared it’s 150 million ad duties to Ogilvy & Mather. A new business pitch that cost the agency upwards of a quarter million dollars and was a significant win for the agency. 

Unfortunately for Ogilvy, the buyout puts their win in limbo. Not only will the 2009 budget be siginificantly less than th 150 million ad spend, as Wells Fargo’s agency of record is Omnicom’s DDB, its unknown if Ogilvy will seen any of the account at all.

Similar advertising issues with the WaMu buyout by Chase could result in the loss of 135 million ad spend from TBWA\Chiat\Day if WaMu’s budget is moved elsewhere. 

I cannot imagine the devestation of winning and then losing a 150 million dollar account within 24hours. 

Read more about it here and here.