Can an ad agency be the tipping point in a competitive battle?
Good question… Crispin Porter + Bogusky, a cousin of the agency I work for (owned by the same holding company) certainly thinks so. In a recent Fast Company article entitled, “Can Alex Bogusky help Microsoft Beat Apple,” the author, Danielle Sacks, debates and discusses this topic.
“Crispin probably has one chance to do something big with Microsoft, and if it fails, I think all bets are off for the agency,” says Gartner analyst Frank. Crispin certainly knows the stakes are high. “From the outside, this looks like a strange marriage,” says Crispin partner Steinhour. Particularly since Crispin has been the Apple of ad agencies. Add up its knack for creating cultural phenomena instead of piggybacking on them, breaking industry rules only to have others follow, orchestrating mass PR stunts, and even turning brands into bullies without customers realizing they’re being bullied — you could equally be talking about Apple. The folks at Crispin like to give the impression that the Microsoft assignment is less about the money than about the thrill. “I think we’ve learned,” says Steinhour, “that when you take on these kinds of odd relationships with big companies that need a kick start, the motivation to overcome those suspicions is a lot of the fun.” But Crispin knows better than anyone that “fun” isn’t the metric for its clients. Noting that Burger King has had 16 straight quarters of growth since Crispin took on the account, Hicks says, “Your work is only as good as the performance of the brand and the business.”
I’m interested to see what CP+B does with Microsoft. I’m a huge Apple fan and hope that CP+B doesn’t do a good job (I’m biased), but I’m sure they are going to have some killer spots. Remember though, people love Apple for it’s emotion… I have no emotion for Microsoft. If this competition was like ice cream, Microsoft is like Haagen Das Vanilla, whereas, Apple is like Ben & Jerry’s Fish Food.
Last I checked though, Microsoft (mkt cap $268.32bln) was still beating Apple (mkt cap $164.07bln). Apple had an extremely strong second quarter…