A few years back, I wrote a column in which I wondered why more ad agencies didn’t place ads for themselves. I mean ads targeting prospective clients, not the inside industry kind (think “humping lions”). Of course, decades ago the big ad agencies did, but the only recent example I had found a few years back was for a Houston agency.
It’s one thing to advertise in Texas Monthly. But StrawberryFrog takes it to a whole new level, advertising in the current issue of Fortune.
Click on the ad to enlarge it.
What strikes me right away is that there are actually three paragraphs of body copy. Oh, the blasphemy! Don’t they know how little attention today’s CEOs and CMOs have? Who in their right mind has time for all that verbage?!?
Actually, I kinda think the ad is very Howard Gossage-like in its approach, with a question for a headline and a focus on a T-shirt rather than directly focusing on the agency’s current work. You actually have to read the ad to get the whole idea.
Whether this effort will pay off with the Fortune audience, we’ll see. But I love the fact that StrawberryFrog is trying. The rest of Fortune is filled with ads for such venerated names as Morgan Stanley, Acura, Visa, and GE. Obviously, StrawberryFrog thinks they deserve a place alongside those other companies.
