Who's Watching Who #3

Sunday is a good day to reflect. We'll continue to do this by posting a Who's-Who of folks that have contacted us and/or checked-out the blog and/or called to praise/complain, and/or any combination thereof over the past week.


DDB Needham - Ad Agency - Worldwide
LCG - Parent Company of Apogee Search - Austin, Tx
ReachForce - Market Research and Data Solutions - Austin, Tx
Tribal DDB- Ad Agency - Worldwide

Veteran Visitors who came back for more:
Campbell Mithun - Ad Agency - Minneapolis, Mn
Crispin Porter + Bogusky - Ad Agency - Miami and Boulder
T-3 - Ad Agency - Austin, Tx - "Major Award" Winner!

So, you've been to the blog but don't see your company on the list? Shoot us an email or post a comment. If you email us, make sure you send it from your company email account so that we know it is the real-deal. Let us know what you think and maybe share a bit of info. You'll get a free link that will do your SEO some good.

Tocquigny's Tuna Two

Tocquigny's COO, Pedro Laboy (right), was recently featured in an Austin American Statesman article regarding the tight local job market for tech savvy folks. Laboy is quoted as saying that the job market is NOT that tight. Here's where the fun starts! John Ellett, CEO of nFusion (one of Tocquigny's big competitors), is quoted in the same article saying that the tech job market IS tight. "Especially in the area of digital marketing and interactive development ... the growth that people had hoped would happen in the late 1990s is actually in full motion now."

Let me put the pieces of this duality together for you. To do this, I have to bring Jason Ford (left) into the story. See, Jason used to work for Tocquigny, then he worked for nFusion, now he works for Tocquiny again. So that leaves us with the lesson: when you loose your Interactive Director to a competitor, you have a tight market; when you "steal" your Interactive Director back from your competitor you have an un-tight market.

So, what does tuna have to do with this?

Amazon's Adjustments

Any of you that have already been to endless.com (which is an Amazon property) have been wondering the same thing that I have, when is Amazon going to incorporate some of the cool things on Endless into Amazon? Well, wonder no more! Amazon.com has been doing some remodeling you might not even be aware of. There is now a "come take a look" link in the top right corner of the site that will send you to this page. They're using a bit of java and ajax to do some interesting things when you hover over certain buttons/items. They've also changed their colors a bit - they think the new colors are more "fetching". Designers seem to hate Amazon. E-commerce folks don't care too much about the colors but typically are in awe of the things the site "does".

"It's a Major Award"

Jay Suhr, SVP Creative Services & Account Planning at Austin ad agency T3, was named one of three creative Online All Stars by MediaPost and OMMA magazine. "The creative Online All Stars were awarded for overall vision in the digital space and for pushing the business to new levels of excellence through outstanding achievement and thought leadership in 2007. Nick Law, executive vice president, chief creative officer, R/GA North America, and Dorian Sweet, executive creative director, Tribal DDB, San Francisco, were also honored in this category."

Who's Watching Who #2

Sunday is always a good day to reflect. We'll continue to do this by posting a Who's-Who of folks that have contacted us and/or checked-out the blog and/or called to praise/complain, and/or any combination thereof over the past week.

Omnicom - You know these guys - Everywhere
T-3 - Ad Agency - Austin, Tx

Veteran Visitors who came back for more:
Campbell Mithun - Ad Agency - Minneapolis, Mn
Crispin Porter + Bogusky - Ad Agency - Miami and Boulder
McGarrah Jessee - Ad Agency - Austin, Tx

Been to the blog but don't see your company on the list? Shoot us an email. Make sure you send it from your company email account so that we know it is the real-deal. Let us know what you think and maybe share a bit of info. Hell, if nothing else you'll get a free link that will do your SEO some good.

Saturday's Snapshot Scene

What better way to share your company culture with the world then by posting a ton of random photos on the web? Photo sharing sites sure make it easy for us to over-share don't they?




Adlucent
Online marketing and website promotion firm
Eating leads to great ppc management I guess.

BazaarVoice
Social marketing and commerce solutions
If you stare you can see the dollar signs in Brett's eyes.

Apogee
Online Marketing Firm
UT Plan II Students + Beer = BIG FUN!
(You must login to Facebook to see the above pics)

Austin Interactive Marketing Association Lunch

The Austin Interactive Marketing Association is holding its first educational luncheon on Monday September 24th.

Here's all the info from the AustinIMA website:
Panel: How Will Social Media Change Consumer Behavior?
Date: Monday, September 24, 2007
Time: 11:30 a.m. - 1:00 p.m. *Lunch will be served*
Location: UT Club, 2108 E. Robert Dedman Dr - Directions

Registered members of the AustinIMA can attend for free if they RSVP prior to the event. Non-members or non-RSVPs will be charged a fee: $45 for non-members, $35 for non-RSVP'd members.
Please RSVP to: hello@austinima.org

Acton Gang Launches DisplayPoints

Greg Fitzgerald, using seed money mostly from his cohorts at the Acton School of Business, has started DisplayPoints Inc. The idea, already put into testing mode at a few local restaurants, is to place table top displays that can be used to push specials, advertise other businesses, and maybe even provide a bit of entertainment to diners. These are no ordinary double-sided paper table-top displays! They are hi-def LCD screens who's messages can easily be changed. Also, as a tie in to a bit of mobile marketing, the screens could be used to prompt eaters to send test messages to various companies to get info on promos or other deals. The local test is currently being run in Bennigan's, Austin's Pizza, and Iron Cactus. The founders are currently trying to raise another $300K that will be used to develop the next version of the display. Like with many startups, the end goal is to sell out to a large media company and then I assume that the Acton gang will move on to something new.

Question: Will the pictures of burgers and meat-loaf on the display look anything like what I am served?

"Nipping" @ Google's Heals

Who's trying to keep up with Google this week? Well, Yahoo just announced that they were in the process of buying e-mail software maker Zimbra. The hope is that the $350 million deal will allow Yahoo to increase its presence in the business and university markets. Zimbra software is currently used for self-hosted email, calendars, and contract management tools. Yahoo will need to continue these types of moves it is wants to "compete" with Microsoft and Google.

Do you think a day goes by at Yahoo where they don't kick themselves for not investing in Google in the early days or for not offering them the right purchase price in 2002?

What happens in Vegas...

The BIG event this week is out west in Las Vegas. Shop.org's annual summit kicks off today and runs through wednesday. A speaker that shouldn't be missed is Pinny Gniwisch, Founder and EVP Marketing of Ice.com. His passion for online retailing and the latest in online marketing is really inspiring.

According to Shop.org this is "the premier gathering of internet and multichannel retailers." Not going to Shop.org? Well then I guess we know you're not "premier". Hell, who am I kidding, I opted out of going and I think I'm "premier".

Attending Shop.org and want to share your experiences? Email Us

Who's Watching Who

Sunday is a good day to reflect. We'll do this by posting a Who's-Who of folks that have contacted us and/or checked-out the blog and/or called to praise/complain, and/or any combination thereof over the past week.

Bazaarvoice - Social Marketing - Austin, Tx
Campbell Mithun - Ad Agency - Minneapolis, Mn
Crispin Porter + Bogusky - Ad Agency - Miami and Boulder
McGarrah Jessee - Ad Agency - Austin, Tx
Wieden+Kennedy - Ad Agency - Portland, Or
William Blair and Company - VC ($$$) - Chicago, Il

Been to the blog but don't see your company on the list? Shoot us an email. Make sure you send it from your company email account so that we know it is the real-deal. Let us know what you think and maybe share a bit of info. Hey, if nothing else you'll get a free link. I don't think paying for blog postings is real word-of-mouth marketing as much as it is a good SEO tactic, so your tips and feedback will be payment enough.

T3 VIP on GMA

Good Morning America is running a series called "The Parenting Wars" in which they are examining various parenting issues facing folks these days. This morning's segment (yes, I got up pre-6am.) revolved around babies in the workplace. Austin's own T-3 was the main focus with its "T3 and Under" program that allows team members to bring their pre-crawling babies to the office. President and CEO Gay Gaddis, who was recently named Ad person of the year by the Austin Advertising Federation, was interviewed and said that the babies at work idea was born out of her panic that a group of her female, pregnant, and top team-members would leave the company once they had their children. The GMA segment went on to show a few T3ers trying to get some work done while they tended to their children's needs. One admitted that he has to take care of a great deal of work after-hours due to having his daughter with him at the office. I kept waiting for them to question non-parent T3 folks to see how they feel about all the crying babies, but no luck as only some people on the streets of other cities were interviewed. The story failed to mention that dogs are also allowed at the T3 compound. Nothing like dirty diapers and wet dog to give a place some ambiance. (You might be wondering if I got up this early just to watch the story...No..I was up tending to our dogs and new baby.)

nFusion nLands nBrinker

Austin-based web design and interactive marketing agency nFusion has been picked by Dallas-based restaurant operator Brinker International Inc. to develop its global business development website. Brinker operates ~fantastic~ chain eateries like Chili's, Romano's Macaroni Grill, and On the Boarder Mexican Grill/Cantina.

Hopefully, nFusion's CEO, John Ellett, and the rest of the gang will be loosening their belts and sampling some ~great~ food. I bet they are already working on the first ever scratch-n-sniff website. Can't you smell the baby-back-ribs?

New Sign Fails to Deliver...Again

Domino's Pizza announced that GSD&M Idea City just wasn't going to be able to deliver and that it had chosen Crispin Porter + Bogusky to handle its $200 million account. That's two blows in two weeks for the recently re-named, re-signed, and re-worked GSD&M as they learned last week that they did not win the US Census Bureau account. I guess the new sign recently placed on their building was just not enough. (Photo at right by Mark Matson for American-Statesman)

AustinIMA Kicks it off

The inaugural event for the newly formed AustinIMA (IMA = interactive marketing association) was held on August 23rd, 2007. Speakers included Bill Leake, CEO of Apogee Search and President of AustinIMA. John Engler was nice enough to take and upload photos so those of us who couldn't make it can see what we missed.



John's Photos from 1st AustinIMA event
AustinIMA website
Sign up for the AustinIMA

INC 500(0)

Since the Austin Business Journal just released that local ad agency Mercury Mambo made the INC 5000 list of fastest growing privately held companies, I don't feel like a sham by posting the rest of the Austin agencies that made the cut. ~Lucky~ for several of these folks that INC decided to up the list count 10-fold turning their 500 to a 5000. Having worked at an INC 500 company, I'm sure they're getting their fill of sales calls these days and might think twice about applying next time.

Rank and Agency name:
337 - Mercury Mambo
363 - Bulldog Solutions
693 - nFusion
1744 - QuantumDirect
2042 - Powered
3387 - qd Solutions
4051 - T3

Bazaar Lands More Mula

Austin based Bazaarvoice Inc. landed a second round on funds today. Austin Ventures and Boston based Battery Ventures pooled together $8.8M that Brett Hurt, Bazaarvoice founder and CEO, said would be use to expand its product line and also grow its market presence.

Prior to Bazaarvoice, Hurt founded the popular web analytics tool company Coremetrics.

I'm betting Bazaarvoice will put the funds to good use and/or at least get a few more clients on the user generated content band-wagon.

Itzbigwig

Online recruiting service Itzbig has done some recruiting for itself and has named Jim McGovern as its new CEO. McGovern, who was most recently CEO at Marketwire Inc, is replacing founding CEO Jim Hammock who will remain chairman.

I guess they are partial to Jims at Itzbig. Let's see if team Jim-Jim can build the company to meet its goal of being the non-frustrating place for recruiters and IT professionals.

Next on their agenda, expand their service from Texas to the Bay area. Please do so! The IT recruiting market is already competitive enough in Austin.

1st post to get things started

This blog is where the RGECWEB staff will post news bits and random thoughts on ad agencies, online marketing, general what's going on items, and more. We'll be rude from time to time. We'll give credit when credit is due. We'll try to spread the love. Got any tips (gossip) or news you want use to post? Email us at rgecweb@gmail.com

Thanks for reading,

Robert Gilbreath
Owner - RGECWEB

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"Small opportunities are often the beginning of great enterprises."
Demosthenes - Greek orator (384-322bc)