Agents have been using blogs as tear books for some time now. I think Redux was one of the first with their blog reduxpictures.com/blog and now many agents have some form of the tear/news/announcements blog: bigleo.com/den, llreps.wordpress.com.
A few have taken it a step further like the Glasshouse Images stone-thrower.com blog where Jacqueline interviews their photographers along with photo editors and art buyers and the Art and Commerce Production artandcommerceproduction.com/blog where they combine photographer news with go-see’s. There’s a similar approach over on Stockland Martel’s blog stocklandmartelblog.com where Kristina combines industry news with the goings on of their photographers.
Finally Bernstein and Andrulli have turned their entire website into a blog ba-reps.com and I have to say the results are quite nice. An emphasis on social marketing may be in the future for everyone working in media. Check out the Crispin Porter + Bogusky website: cpbgroup.com where they pull content about the agency from youtube, twitter and blogs.
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Thanks so much for including the Stockland Martel blog in your post, Rob. Blogs, whether they’re photographer blogs or photography-agent blogs, can—and, I would argue, should—be so much more than alternate portfolios. Not only are they a much more nimble marketing platform than a website; they’re also just intrinsically more informal and conversational, and therefore compelling in a different way. Plus, they’re totally fun to write.
Happy Thanksgiving to you!
Kristina
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Posted 25 Nov 2009 at 12:00 pm ¶Bernstein and Andrulli’s website is extremely nice. One can really appreciate the thought, design and customization behind it. Mullen Advertising: mullen.com also changed their website to a blog format one. We enjoy your blog very much too Rob and Kristina.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Christine Kelly
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Posted 25 Nov 2009 at 12:27 pm ¶Adding JedRoot: http://blog.jedroot.com/jri/
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Posted 25 Nov 2009 at 1:21 pm ¶speaking of cp+b, this reminds me of some other brands/agencies that have done some clever integrations with social media tools: skittles and advertising agency boone oakley.
skittles i believe was one of the first to do what cp+b did – bring in feeds from flickr, twitter, facebook, wikipedia…
boone oakley was very clever in the way they leveraged youtube to create their agency website. love their cheeky & irreverent tone of voice.
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Posted 25 Nov 2009 at 2:19 pm ¶Jed Root is my favorite. But I am totally biased on that one.
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Posted 25 Nov 2009 at 3:41 pm ¶For the most part these are all quite nice and the idea meshes with what a designer told me recently. She sees a lot of web design going to blog based formats.
That said – I find the CP+B site a turn-off. To me it’s too busy and indiscriminate. A Twitter feed front and center. Why? It’s lots of one sided comments that no one can ever really follow. I don’t get it.
I know that CP+B is trying to send the message that “we’re in the mix,” but I wonder if this type of presentation can backfire from a client’s perspective. In other words, for the ad agency’s client, the ad agency is supposed to cut through the noise and the clutter of the media world to get a client’s product noticed. But CP+B’s site seems to send the message – we don’t cut through the clutter, we’re a part of it.
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Bruce DeBoer Reply:
December 1st, 2009 at 1:43 pm
@Jon Roemer, I think it’s more than being “in the mix”. The site shows work but other than that the best a website can do is to a) give the visitor a feeling for the agency culture and b) give them a reason to return.
Personally I think it’s pretty brave and reflects their culture well. Another good example is from BooneOakley: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Elo7WeIydh8
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Jon Roemer Reply:
December 1st, 2009 at 6:59 pm
@Bruce DeBoer,
I’ve seen the BooneOakley video. I think it’s great. It’s fun; both the content and the medium work together to send a message. It also has signposts for potential BO clients.
I don’t see that in the CP+B site. To me the CP+B site dumps a lot of stuff on the table, including unneeded things like the twitter feed, and it walks away leaving the viewer to make sense of it all.
I don’t see the CP+B site fulfilling “b” because it’s breaking a few cardinal rules of websites – c) don’t leave the viewer confused, d) make sure you get your message across quickly, and e) make your navigation obvious and clear.
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Bruce DeBoer Reply:
December 1st, 2009 at 7:14 pm
@Jon Roemer, You might be right. It’ll be interesting to see how long they keep this going. I wouldn’t be surprised if having a Twitter feed on your website becomes dated very quickly. Do you have any predictions?
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Jon Roemer Reply:
December 1st, 2009 at 8:12 pm
@Bruce DeBoer, 12/1/09. Let it be known that on this date, at this time, publishing a Twitter feed on a web site has officially become dated.
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Putting their money where their creativity is, the CPB site is open source. They’ve made the source code available to developers.
Go Here: http://github.com/cpbadmin/newd
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Posted 25 Nov 2009 at 11:30 pm ¶good look .i like this site,thanks
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Posted 28 Nov 2009 at 1:10 pm ¶Thanks Rob!!! I’m glad to hear people are enjoying the Q&As!! They took a break in November and will be back up and running this month.
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Posted 30 Nov 2009 at 10:24 am ¶It’s not enough to post on blogs – in my opinion – check out why I think CP+B are ahead of the curve and should be forgiven for having a Twitter feed on their Site:
http://www.justin.tv/fearlessqa
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Posted 03 Dec 2009 at 12:07 pm ¶Thanks for the mention Rob. We have recently completely redesigned our website and our featuring our blog content more prominently. We’re also posting more photographer Q&As and other non-tear sheet items. It’s fun to do and definitely helps bring traffic to our site.
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Posted 08 Dec 2009 at 9:39 am ¶Post a Comment