Small San Francisco Ad Agencies Founded by Goodby Silverstein Alumni

Many great San Francisco ad agencies are actually spinoffs founded by former employees who worked in the hallowed halls of Goodby Silverstein and learned to hone their craft.

One time I asked a client how they found Division of Labor and he said, “I Googled ‘ad agencies founded by Goodby Silverstein and Partners employees’ ”.

I thought that was pretty smart. When you can’t hire the best, hire the people who learned from the best. Given the longevity of Goodby Silverstein and Partners’ and the talent that’s gone through the place over the years, a good number of us have started agencies. Some got big, some got mid, some stayed small, but all have pieces of what Jeff and Rich started 40 years ago.

Those guys pushed us for fresh, weird, honest, funny, smart, and quirky and they wanted the place to be a reflection of the clients and the people who worked there, not of them. So if you’re like our former client, Preston and you want an agency founded by people who worked up on 720 California St or 921 Front St before that, here they are. Our competitors but also our friends. 

I will say, Division of Labor has pitched and won against most of these agencies. And we’ve pitched and lost against most of them. But if a client hires one of them over us, at least I know the client made both a crappy decision and a great decision at the same time. So here they are in alphabetical order, not by ranking, as they’re all great shops.

Argonaut - Hunter Hindman started it with Robert Ricardi, one of the best ad guys out there, and the place is a staple in the San Francisco scene.

BarrettSF - Founded by Jamie Barrett, ex Fallon, ex Weidan and Kennedy and ex Goodby Silverstein, the trifecta of agencies.

Butler Shine - The original spinoff. ButtShine has been doing it well for longer than all of us.

Camp King - Set in the Presidio, founded by Roger Camp and Jamie King. Roger did great work before he was at GS&P and they still do it today.

Cutwater - Founded by Chuck McBride, a great writer who also got to work under Lee Clow, so he has that going for him too.

Division of Labor - Founded by Josh Denberg and Paul Hirsch (and now run by Josh) they focus on Series B startups, tech companies and brand relaunches.

Funworks - Founded by Craig Mangan and based on the idea that improv can lead to great advertising.

Odysseus Arms - I don’t know Libby, but I know Libby’s work and it’s good.

Partners in Crime - Founded by Steven Goldblatt who liked our storefront idea but wanted it near the Giants ballpark.

Venables Bell - Paul and Greg started their place with Bob Molineaux and had Audi within 4 years. Still have no idea how they did that!

So if you’re looking for a shortlist of San Francisco ad agencies, skip the pitch and contact of a few of these places. Though our completely biased opinion says, start by clicking here.

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The Small Agency Blog is produced by Division of Labor; the ad agency for startups, based in San Francisco, twice named Small Agency of the Year by Ad Age. The award-winning creative shop services a variety of clients and specializes in startups that have obtained Series B financing or higher. They also offer freelance services. Click here for a free consultation.

Why Every Series B Startup Can Benefit From an Ad Agency Relationship

Stytch’s founders and their internal team worked closely with Division of Labor Advertising to create their hugely successful first advertising campaign.

The people who work at ad agencies are generally not Rhodes Scholars, rocket scientists, or Mensa members. They didn’t graduate from Stanford, Penn, or MIT. And if you’re the CEO of a Series B startup, you may be smarter than many of them. But intelligence doesn’t make great advertising. Insight does. And ad people know how to connect emotionally with people and make them want things.

Yes, it’s sometimes hard for really smart people to relinquish control, but if we could give you one piece of advice when running a Series B start-up it’s this: Stop solely collaborating internally on how best to market your product and bring in an ad agency to help you and your team get the job done.

If you have the money to build an internal agency, that works too. Keep them independent and hire experienced talent and internal agencies are amazing. But before you spend the millions, spend a few thousand. Why?

We don’t know everything

And that’s a good thing. You all know too much; about the product about the market about the technology about the details. Your target audience doesn’t think about your product 1/100th as much as you do. Neither do we. But an agency can help find that little piece of truth, that one thing that will make people sit up and go, “Ooah, what’s that?”

Strategic Planning: Sure, you can draft a business plan, but can you craft a campaign strategy that weaves seamlessly beyond just digital and social clicks? An ad agency does more than just draw pretty pictures; they map out the entire journey, sorta like a GPS with a PhD in marketing.

Copywriting: Anyone can string a few adjectives together, but crafting copy that’s actually memorable is an art form. Your product or service may be as exciting as watching paint dry, but in the hands of the right creative team, even insurance can be entertaining.

 Design: Product design is not graphic design or art direction. You probably have great product designers and UX designer on staff. But that’s not the same as a conceptual art director or a designer who can bring a campaign to life and create a brand that’s unignorable. 

 Media Planning: Buying Ad Space is Not a DIY Project. Ad agencies are like real estate agents for your content, securing prime advertising spaces and negotiating deals that make your budget stretch further than your yoga instructor doing downward dog. We’ve seen countless campaigns get messed up because the wrong media is bought or the timelines aren’t clear or the specs are wrong or the assets are shipped incorrectly. Yes, you’ll pay a small commission. But do it right or don’t do it.

 Data Analysis: Ad agencies don't just throw darts in the dark and hope for the best. They dive deep into the data, analyzing the performance of your campaigns. They can adjust the messaging and adjust the target media to get the absolute most from your media spend. At the same time, we do not blindly follow data. We use it to craft holistic campaigns. If advertising was pure science, we would have written the algorithm and retired a long time ago.

That’s it. What an ad agency does for you isn’t exceptionally complicated But it’s a skill like any other best left to the experts. You trust them to know their craft and you’ll benefit from their perspective.

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The Small Agency Blog is produced by Division of Labor; a top San Francisco ad agency and digital marketing firm that’s been named Small Agency of the Year twice by Ad Age. The award-winning creative shop services clients on a retainer or project basis. They also offer brand consulting services and hourly engagements for startups and smaller brands. Click here for a free consultation.

We Are Not a Healthcare Ad Agency. But We Play One On TV.

We’re not a healthcare agency, we just happen to do some good healthcare advertising. Sometimes our commercials even run during Gray’s Anatomy.

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It’s nice when you’re not sure exactly what kind of an ad agency you are. Maybe it means you’re evolving. Or maybe it means you’re taking on challenges you haven’t before. Who knows. But for not being a healthcare ad agency, we sure have done a lot of healthcare advertising lately. 

After projects for UCSF, Lively and Michigan Health Professionals, we got a call to pitch El Camino Health, one of the premier healthcare brands in the South Bay. And what do you know, we won the dang thing.

We had a simple idea that led to a strong collaboration with our clients and ultimately the launch of the biggest brand campaign El Camino Health has ever done. Not that “biggest” really means anything, but it does show the company is behind the work, internally and externally. So, yes, that feels good. 

Of course, Division of Labor never intended to become a healthcare ad agency. And, in fact, we work hard to maintain a diverse roster of clients in order to avoid being pigeonholed into any one category of advertising. But the reality is that healthcare is probably the most emotional category there is. And it deserves more than changing the words to old pop songs and jumping into swimming pools. “Oh, oh, oh, Ozempic!” (Look it up if you don’t know it. I can’t bear to put a link to it.)

The El Camino Health campaign took a while to get out the door because we went through extensive brand strategy work with our partners at Paragraph Project to help everyone understand the key communication points to focus on and ensure any future messaging would be consistent. After developing multiple campaign ideas to bring the brand position to life, we did some consumer testing to get validation.

TESTING PROVES TESTING WORKS

Of course, I’ve never met a creative person who liked concept research. In the wrong hands, it dumbs down ideas and kills creativity. But, in the right hands, with good clients, it helps you make a decision. It doesn’t make the decision; it helps. And when you work with scientists, engineers, tech founders, consumer packaged goods, B2B companies, hell, anyone these days, you’re going to need data. So don’t fight it, go get it.

In the end, the idea that won out was the original ad campaign idea we presented in the pitch. We brought in director/editor Doug Walker to help us bring it to life. And Vince Genovese to help navigate the complexities of filming in a hospital. 

Through it all, our clients navigated us into and around the various complexities and red tape of the medical system to the point where our line producer, Brian Benson offered our client, Holly Trollman a job in production. (She declined, by the way.) 

The body of work was difficult to produce, frustrating at times, and one of the most satisfying and rewarding projects we’ve taken on.  Vineeta Hiranandani is our amazing client who led us through strategy sessions, board meetings, medical reviews, design reviews and final production. While Lydia Antippas ran our entire primary care campaign and the entire digital media campaign. Thank you both. 

Over a year after someone in our office, and I think it was account director Rebecca Reid, said “Accept Nothing Less than El Camino Health”, we are thrilled to see it come to life on TV, streaming, social and digital video, outdoor, radio, and it’s everywhere in the South Bay thanks to our media planner and buyer, Brenda Goodman.

So are we a healthcare agency? No. But we’re really proud of this one.

El Camino Health launch video - Division of Labor

Credits:

ECH - Vineeta Hiranandani, Lydia Antippas, Holly Trollman, Dan Woods, all the El Camino Health physicians, nurses and staff.

Production - Doug Walker, John Ettinger, Brian Benson, Molly Condit, Norman Bondy, Paul Chaput, Ryan Kavanaugh, 1606 Productions, Caruso Films,

DoL - Rebecca Reid, Faruk Sagcan, Ruby Noto, Lauren Chandler, Brenda Goodman, Dawn Margolis, Vince Genovese, Scott Aal, Dustin Smith, John Reid, Lynda Greenberg, Dan Carlton, Jess Sebbo, Chelsey Robertson.

Toddler interrupts Ad Agency Zoom call. Staffers Feign Interest.

A creative director’s toddler interrupting the ad agency Zoom meeting.

A San Francisco ad agency status meeting was brought to an abrupt halt Monday by an attention-seeking three-year-old who also happens to be the son of executive creative director, Tom Goodman.  

The child boldly entered the meeting dressed as Spider-Man and wielding a sippy cup full of oat milk. 

At first, he could only be seen at the edge of the frame spinning in circles and muttering something akin to “Dada boo boo, Dada boo boo.” Eventually, he got so dizzy, he fell to the ground and bumped his head,” notes production assistant Cathy Callaway. “But then he caught a second wind, popped up, and began licking the laptop camera.”

Agency staffers, initially caught off guard by the interruption, didn’t know how to react. “We assumed Tom would holler for the nanny to collect the kid, but instead he began clapping along, singing the Spider-Man theme song,” says junior copywriter, Jenny Evans. 

While those in attendance undoubtedly found the intrusion annoying, they embraced the opportunity to suck up to their boss by feigning interest in the child’s onscreen antics. 

Kelly Bauer, account exec on the coveted Scaredy Cat Kitty Litter account, jumped in first with comments like,  “Wow, is that really Peter Parker?” and “Don’t wrap me in your web, Spidey!” The toddler, who goes by the name Satchel, responded to Bauer’s pandering with the nonsensical retort, “I’m wearing  poopie shirt.” Satchel then squealed and dragged his grubby fingers across his father’s keyboard. Then, for no particular reason, he added: “You a toilet face.”  

A few of the action figures displayed during the meeting: Aqua Man, Green Lantern, and the Waldorf-inspired Stick Man.

Emboldened by the attention, however, the child seized the opportunity to introduce the group to his rather large collection of action figures while his father kept repeating, “And who’s that?” The beleaguered staff listened attentively as the kid ticked off the names of nearly a dozen superheroes, including Aqua Man, the Green Lantern, and Stick Man—a Waldorf-inspired figurine that’s really just a hunk of driftwood. 

Undeterred by the toddler’s incessant rant, one digital marketing firm staffer, Dwayne Clutterbuck went so far as to request, “Spider-Man, will you help us with an ad campaign!” Satchel wisely ignored this request.  Those in the know speculate that the toddler may have instinctively known that Clutterbuck has a reputation for passing his work off onto others. 

The interruption was going on nearly five minutes when project manager, Denise Cartwright Blurted out “Your Spidey Sense should tell you we have a lot of work to do.” Asked about it later, Cartwright said, “I thought I was on mute, but I’m kinda glad he heard.” 

At press time, Cartwright had not yet been passed over for a promotion for suggesting her boss's child should be seen and not heard.

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The Small Agency Blog is produced by Division of Labor; a top San Francisco ad agency and digital marketing firm that’s been named Small Agency of the Year twice by Ad Age. The award-winning creative shop services clients on a retainer or project basis. They also offer brand consulting services and hourly engagements for startups and smaller brands. Click here for a free consultation. 

How Much Does it Cost to Hire an Ad Agency?

How much does it cost to hire a top San Francisco Ad Agency?

We get this question a lot. And it sure would be nice if you could price an ad campaign like a rump roast or a haircut or a bikini wax, But it really does depend on a number of factors. That said, what a product costs shouldn’t be a secret. So we’re gonna do our best to give you a simple answer.

Ad agencies and digital marketing firms charge clients an hourly rate for each person working on the client’s project. Every person at the ad agency is billed out by the hour. Every agency has a rate sheet you can request. You just need to know you can ask for it. (You know, like animal-style fries at In N’ Out Burger.) Junior account executives might be $125 an hour while a managing director might be $400. Ask for the agency’s blended rate to get their average hourly, which is somewhere between $225 and $300 these days.

That’s what an agency costs. But how much will it cost you? Now, this is where it gets tougher. Tell the agency what you need to accomplish, a general marketing budget, and they’ll give you a Scope of Work outlining the services they’ll provide along with a proposed timeline for deliverables and an estimated cost for each deliverable.

NOTE: There’s no charge for beer, gummies, video games, hipster beard cream, or ironic T-shirts.

Generally speaking, bigger agencies’ hourly rates are higher than smaller independent shops, because they have a lot more overhead. Also, a client spending only on social media ads would pay an agency a lot less than a client doing a multimedia, national campaign. Because the latter requires a lot more time and money to develop, produce and execute. 

Ironic T-shirts are included within the hourly rates of ad agency and digital marketing firm fees.

Some agencies, Division of Labor among them, will take on small projects for a flat, package rate. This allows us to engage with startups and companies with smaller budgets. We also break from traditional agency pricing and offer consulting and in-house freelance services.

Couldn’t I do it myself for tons less?

You can.  Everything you ask an agency to do, you could do much cheaper on your own. You could go to Facebook or Instagram, pull down their ad campaign tools and start making ads. You could buy a lightbox, photograph your products, pull them into Photoshop to create designs, and write headlines and copy that bring your brand to life. You could write a script and ask your TikTok-making daughter and her friends to shoot a video for you and pay them a fraction of what you’ll pay an ad agency. 

Some companies have had tremendous success creating and producing amazing videos and ad campaigns on their own; DollarShaveClub is brilliant, for example. If you have a gregarious founder and can write and produce something on your own, go for it. If it sucks, you can hire an agency later. If it’s great, fuck the agency.

But, generally speaking, the people who know how to create a product, manage a staff and scale a business (clients) have a totally different skill set than the people who know how to market a business (ad agencies). 

Dollar Shave Club made their first video on their own and have since built up an amazing internal department.

Why should I Pay an Ad Agency Before I See What Ideas They Have?

This is a great question. Why should you? 

Restaurants don’t cook meals for you hoping you’ll like the food and decide to pay them. Lawyers won’t work on your case for six months hoping you like the outcome and decide to pay them. Accountants don’t do your taxes hoping you like the way the math works out and decide to pay them. (This section could go on longer, but you get the idea.)

The fish counter doesn’t work like this.

You’re paying an ad agency for their thinking, their strategic planning, their problem solving, design skills, writing, and most of all, for their ideas. So they can’t do it for free.

But there is another way. Try this; Search “top ad agency San Francisco” or “best digital marketing companies San Francisco” or something else in the Google. Look at what each agency has done for other clients and narrow it down to a few agencies you like. Have a call with each and ask for a credentials presentation.

Then hire two or three agencies for the same small project. Pay each agency for the project. And agree to give the agency you like best a larger project after you’ve worked with each of them. It’s a great way to see what they’re really like and what they’re capable of. 

How do I know what our budget should be?

When figuring out your marketing budget, know there are three different things you pay for: Paid Media, Production, Agency Fees

Paid Media is usually the biggest cost. This is how much you pay to a TV network or a streaming service to run your commercial. Or how much you pay Facebook or Instagram to run your promoted video or ads. 

Ad agencies develop media strategies, create media plans, buy the media, measure effectiveness, optimize the campaign, give you weekly reports and use their knowledge to secure the best media at the best rates. For that, the agency takes a percentage as a fee; typically between 5% and 18% depending on the media and depending on the agency.

Production costs are what you need to spend to make your campaign. Filming the videos, recording the commercials, photographing things for billboards, coding banners and social media, developing digital and social executions of all shapes and sizes. Agencies oversee production and hire all the production companies needed to get everything made in all the required sizes and formats and then distribute all the assets to the media outlets. Agencies are paid for their time to oversee production and/or they can mark up the production costs.

Agency fees are the hourly costs you pay the agency for their time to do strategy sessions, digital planning, workshops, creative presentations, research, revisions, Zoom calls and late-night panicked phone calls. Plus SEO, SEM, PPC, social channel management, all the meetings, and anything else you might ask the agency staff to do for you.

So that’s how much an ad agency costs. If you made it this far without the costs making you throw up in your mouth, check out DivisionofLabor.com 

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The Small Agency Blog is produced by Division of Labor; a top San Francisco ad agency and digital marketing firm that’s been named Small Agency of the Year twice by Ad Age. The award-winning creative shop services clients on a retainer or project basis. They also offer brand consulting services and hourly engagements for startups and smaller brands. Click here for a free consultation. 

How Our Ad Agency Found Joy in Getting Fired

Division of Labor is proud to have donated its Keen Footwear retainer fee to GLIDE, a leading social service organization, a social justice movement, and a spiritual community that has served those most vulnerable for more than 50 years.

Running an independent ad agency is not for the faint of heart. You have up years and down years.  There’s no big holding company to bail you out when the going gets tough. And last year, Division of Labor was having an up year. (That’s not a humble brag cuz the previous year sucked balls.)

Things were humming along. We’d landed two big retainer clients to go with a steady stream of project work, social media production, commercial production, and a strong showing in the ad agency fantasy football league.

Then came the shit storm known as Covid 19. Blah blah blah, whine whine whine, bye-bye profits.

Given the enormity of the situation, we shouldn’t have been shocked when our two new, hard-won clients, along with several others, called to say they were slashing their marketing budgets, laying off their own staff, and putting marketing contracts on hold.

We usually have a 60 day out clause in our contracts, which gives us time to get our own house in order when clients leave. And, in normal times, clients are good with that and we adapt. 

But these aren’t normal times or normal clients. One of the greats, for example, is Keen Footwear. Besides the fact that they’re probably the most environmentally-conscious shoe company on the planet, I’ve known the GM for over 10 years and he’s a great guy. The whole company is hell-bent on doing good whenever they can and our relationship is a lot more important than a month of payment.

So, we got on a Zoom call, poured a cocktail, talked about it, and came up with an idea: Since they were long on product and tight on cash, why not get paid in shoes? And then we thought, “What the hell are we gonna do with all those shoes?” Then we realized we knew a guy who had the answer.

Rabbi Michael Lezak the staff rabbi at GLIDE Center for Social Justice since 2017. Yes, a rabbi works for the church. And if you’ve ever been down to GLIDE in San Francisco at mealtime, you know they’re doing God’s work no matter how you choose to pray. (GLIDE is one of the leading social service organizations, a social justice movement, and a spiritual community that has served those most vulnerable for the past 57 years in San Francisco.)

By the second cocktail, we had devised a plan: Roughly half our retainer fee would be paid in shoes and 220 pairs would go to GLIDE. The Rabbi and his team would oversee the distribution of men’s and women’s shoes to the people hit hardest by this pandemic. Another 40 pair of shoes would be donated to a local shelter in Marin county called Mill Street, run by the non-profit Homeward Bound. About 40 residents live at Mill Street at any one time and they’re working to get back on their feet, no pun intended. Free shoe codes were donated so each resident will be able to select the pair of shoes that works best for them.

It was a win for everybody. Keen is a values-based company that back in March donated 100,000 pairs of shoes to workers on the front lines and those hardest hit by the pandemic. And, more recently, after shifting one of their factories into a mask-making facility, donated 100,000 masks to frontline workers.

So donating to a worthy cause while conserving cash was instinctual for them. And, for us: Let’s just say it takes the sting out of being fired. Under normal circumstances, we don’t have the disposable income to make large donations like this one. But these are not normal circumstances. And when we take inventory of all that we do have, we know we’re more fortunate than most. Essential workers are out there risking their lives to keep society functioning, while all we’ve been asked to do is wear a mask and practice social distancing. So, facilitating a shoe donation makes us feel slightly less useless.   

It sucks losing business, and we know it’s only temporary, but this feels like a pretty good outcome, for us, for Keen, and for so many who will be grateful for the gift.  

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The Small Agency Blog is produced by Division of Labor; a top San Francisco ad agency and digital marketing firm that’s been named Small Agency of the Year twice by Ad Age. The award-winning creative agency services clients on a retainer or project basis. They also offer freelance services and fixed-rate projects for startups and smaller brands.

How to get more foster parents in San Francisco

One of the many executions in a new campaign seeking foster families in San Francisco.

San Francisco’s housing crisis impacts everyone in the city, including long-time residents who can no longer afford rents and young families forced to move away to buy homes. But one of the under-reported tragedies: It’s also having a devastating effect on foster children.  

Right now there are hundreds of kids waiting to be placed into homes in the city. And without a steady stream of  volunteers, those kids will be forced into homes far from the only city they’ve ever known.

So how does a government agency get fresh recruits? They team up with one of San Francisco’s top ad agencies, Division of Labor. 

The creative brief set forth by the San Francisco Human Services Agency was simple:  Create an attention-grabbing ad campaign that recruits 100 new foster families to join the cause. 

The ask is huge. It’s not like getting people to try a new laundry detergent or switch to a low-fat peanut butter. Becoming a foster parent is a life-changing decision. To that end, we needed an emotional hook that would get people to pay attention.

Inspiration hit while someone on our creative team was walking through a parking lot. He saw a huge SUV taking up two compact spaces. Not surprisingly, his first thought was:  “What a jerk.” But his next thought was “Unless that jerk happens to be a foster parent. In that case, they can park wherever the heck they want!” 

That idea really rang true with everyone on the project. It resulted in an edgier, more humorous campaign that changed people’s perspective on fostering and got them to think about it in a new way.

There are over 40 different executions across billboards, bus shelters, digital banners and social media platforms and they’re all based on the horrible, but not-so-horrible things we all do that can be made up for by being a foster parent. Things like, you might be a serial re-gifter or you might only tip 10% or you might eat all the m&m’s out of the trail mix, but at least you’re a foster parent. The tagline across the campaign: Fostering. It makes up for a lot.

The San Francisco Chronicle did a piece on the campaign launch, along with the perspective of a family who has fostered multiple kids over the years, including a medically-fragile baby they’ve since adopted.

And while ad agencies love free press, in this case, we’re hoping the free press attracts new families, not new clients.

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The Small Agency Blog is produced by Division of Labor; a top San Francisco ad agency and digital marketing firm that’s been named Small Agency of the Year twice by Ad Age. The award-winning creative shop services clients on a retainer or project basis. They also offer brand consulting services and hourly engagements for startups and smaller brands. Click here for a free consultation.

Client Asks For “Out-of-the-Box” Thinking. Subsequently Demands Return to Box.

The Marketing team at Atom Analytics panicked today after their advertising agency delivered on the company’s request for “out-of-the-box” thinking. Pandemonium erupted following the initial creative presentations. Senior executives immediately scrambled to shove all the “out of the box” thinking back into the box. 

“When I said “out of the box,” I didn’t mean way outside,” said chief marketing officer Dwayne Clutterbuck. “Like, if the box were a house I wanted the ideas to be, maybe, like in the tool shed.” 

Top brass who sat in on the meeting were even more blunt. “This is not the type of out of the box thinking we’re used to,” said Connie Jennings, director of Status Quo. “We see out of the box thinking every day, and it never looks like this.”

Middle managers, however, hoping to quickly restore order initially gushed over the marketing plan and then mercilessly picked apart the presentation, blaming the agency for delivering precisely what they’d asked for.

The team from Atom Analytics reacts to their new agency’s presentation.

The plan included a number of thought provoking ideas along with a robust digital marketing plan and some stunts that would most certainly garner publicity. “There was something with Dennis Rodman walking on a tightrope over Times Square. It was just way too attention grabbing for us. You don’t need ideas to get attention when you have a great product,” said Clutterbuck completely contradicting the entire purpose of brand marketing and advertising.

Executives across the board feared that these new ideas might actually make the company appear different from the competition. Following the meeting, a feedback email from Atom Analytics to the agency read: “We were talking about next steps, and decided a safer approach would be to make TV commercials that point out our features and benefits like you know, those Ped Egg commercials. Would you be able to get us a script by Tuesday?”

Days later, Atom Analytics again asked the agency for “out-of-the-box” thinking, as if they completely forgot everything that just happened.

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The Small Agency Blog is produced by Division of Labor; a top San Francisco ad agency and digital marketing firm that’s been named Small Agency of the Year twice by Ad Age. The award-winning creative shop services clients on a retainer or project basis. They also offer brand consulting services and hourly engagements for startups and smaller brands. Click here for a free consultation.

Ad Agency Hires Explainer Video Company to Explain the Idiocy of Explainer Videos.

A scene from our explainer video explaining the drawbacks of explainer videos. See full video below.

Last week we wrote a tongue-in-cheek blog post about how every tech startup seems to use the same style explainer video to launch their company. But there was some confusion as we noted a number of people were debating whether the article was parody or real. 

This speaks volumes about where we are in the industry. We were blatantly making fun of a fake company called Woo Woo and how they had a pitch for their 100 million dollar business but instead hired a kid named Dwayne to make a cartoon for $500 bucks.

And as ridiculous as it sounds, so many of us in the industry have watched dumbfounded time and time again as startups have made this same marketing mistake. 

So we at Division of Labor decided to hire an explainer video company to explain why marketing executives should not use an explainer videos in place of proper branding and advertising.

We were nervous at first that explainer video companies wouldn’t take kindly to our little experiment. After all, hiring someone to create a video that makes fun of what they do for a living might not go over too well.

But the company we hired saw nothing strange about what we were doing and charged us the standard $400, which incidentally is one hundred bucks cheaper than our fictitious explainer video mastermind, Dwayne Clutterbuck.

So what did we learn? The service was seamless. Our contact was professional and willing to make whatever tweaks we suggested. And, in the end, we got what paid for: A crude, formulaic, 2-D animation video that looks exactly like every other explainer video that’s now ubiquitous on the internet. 

And while disruptor culture certainly makes it easier to do things, faster and cheaper. It’s ironic that the end product is in no way disruptive. (Save for the tree shrews eating people’s brains and our main character pole-dancing to a cash shower.)

There’s certainly a place for explainer videos in the world. As a way to detail a complex product in simple, disarming language, it’s a technique. But not if you want to set your product or brand apart from everyone else. These sorts of videos do nothing to differentiate, nothing to establish a voice, and nothing to set your product apart or make anyone remember you. 

If one marketing executive or startup founder watches our “explainer video on why not to use explainers videos” and finds merit, it was worth the investment. Though, admittedly, we’d be even more delighted if said marketing executive or founder offers Division of Labor the opportunity to properly position their brand for optimal success.

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The Small Agency Blog is produced by Division of Labor; a top San Francisco ad agency and digital marketing firm that’s been named Small Agency of the Year twice by Ad Age. The award-winning creative shop services clients on a retainer or project basis. They also offer brand consulting services and hourly engagements for startups and smaller brands. Click here for a free consultation.