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.
{ 15 comments… read them below or add one }
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
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
Adding JedRoot: http://blog.jedroot.com/jri/
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.
Jed Root is my favorite. But I am totally biased on that one.
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.
@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
@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.
@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?
@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.
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
good look .i like this site,thanks
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.
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
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.