Atlanta has always been a bit of an anemic market for ad agencies. Many great talented creatives got a start here by going through The Creative Circus and The Portfolio Center. But few agencies here, if any, have done consistently great work and grown sufficiently to become influential in the city or the industry.
So it’ll be interesting to see The Atlanta Egotist’s take on the market.
Hopefully the blog will be a way to rally the creative community here and not be a simple bitchfest. Even better would be a way to show the city’s Fortune 500 companies, like Delta, UPS, Georgia-Pacific, Home Depot and others, that they can find pockets of creativity here to keep more of their ad dollars flowing through the city. Or convince other big spenders to stop in Atlanta before they change planes and head elsewhere.
From the looks of it, the ATL Egotist doesn’t give a crap about ATL. Take a look at their coverage. It’s all over the map, like all the Egotist sites.
Not giving a crap about Atlanta seems a little harsh, no? These guys started their site yesterday. Give them some time.
Also, there’s a strategy to covering work from inside and outside the market in the site. Local people get to see their work compared to the best that’s going on in the world – so they know where the bar is set.
Plus, you give them a place to come see all the great work going on around the world, not just in their home city. It’s worked for us in Denver. It’s working in San Francisco, Minneapolis and many other cities. It’ll work in Atlanta.
No, it’s not harsh. You guys have a plan and you’re working it. No one can fault you for that. But it’s plainly obvious that the out-of-market posts made on all your sites are meant to boost your site’s metrics, and make them better vehicles for advertising. To say that you’re merely wanting to show locals where the bar is set is laughable.
As a consumer of your editorial products, I think it would be great to visit Egotist sites in various cities and actually see a site dedicated to local coverage. For what it’s worth…