Agencies And Their Ancillary Products
March 21, 2008
Agencies are always looking for new ways to generate revenue. Not a bad thing. AdFreak points to New York agency Brooklyn Brothers that is now producing organic chocolate candies. Anomaly has been talking about products and IP for I can’t remember how long. Creativity is checking out Mother London’s foray into publishing via graphic novel, Four Feet From a Rat, debuting in Time Out magazine.
“The opportunity for the whole agency to write them is great,” says Mother creative Stuart Outhwaite. “It’s an opportunity for all writers at Mother to come in and have a go; relief for the frustrated creatives who want to do things other than advertising.”
According to the Creativity: “Mother and Time Out worked out the deal as part of the agency’s reducing its fees to work for the magazine, which in turn offered its pages for the agency’s creatives to flex their muscles.”
It’s an ad for the agency and a way to keep the bored creatives and copywriters juices all up in the mix. Nice. And catch this - next up for Mother is a film. Seriously, you have to appreciate their tenacity and their willingness to cross borders and fuck up the model a bit.
March 21, 2008 at 4:21 pm
ehhh… if someone told me a plumber was also really good a crocheting, i don’t think that makes him a better plumber… and, agencies like anomaly and mother new york are doing more crocheting than plumbing… maybe they re crocheters and should reconsider their plumbing company.
March 21, 2008 at 5:06 pm
DraftFCB is debuting a rectal spelunking kit as we speak. To get ahead, you must go behind.
March 21, 2008 at 5:36 pm
This isn’t as fancy as the ideas you’ve mentioned in your post, but we started an e-commerce t-shirt website before we had any clients. It paid our rent for a year when we were in our first space.
The site’s at Sackwear.com
March 21, 2008 at 10:34 pm
Oh, fucking dear me… None of this is new… Back in the sixties, before most of you wankers were born, PKL… George Lois’s first agency after leaving DDB, got into book publishing and making bicycles. They also did some great advertising on the side. Needless to say, within a few short years they went belly up… Just stick to making ads guys, even if you do it badly, ‘cos if I want dildos, I’ll go to a fucking dildo company… Duh!!!
Cheers/George
March 22, 2008 at 1:11 am
Yawn. There’s a reason why the iPod wasn’t invented by Wieden & Kennedy.
March 24, 2008 at 4:06 pm
Well it’s not a new concept, businesses grow… and as long as it’s a somewhat related field it makes sense as the same management and staff understand the new field they are entering.
March 24, 2008 at 4:47 pm
[...] the riddle of how agencies are going to earn dollars in the future. It seems someone is always working out a new angle. While this bike team sponsorship isn’t as big as Gyro Worldwide, a Philadelphia agency, [...]
March 24, 2008 at 5:00 pm
It’s about creativity. Do the same thing day in and day out and it tends to get stale. Mix it up and integrate something you also love and…..profit. That’s my view anyway….