Choosing your creative provider is a major decision. Whether it’s for a one-off project or for a longer term relationship the decision will have a major impact on your marketing and your business. Your creative drives your brand and the resulting engagement with your (potential) customers. So how do you go about making the right [...]

Who is the custodian of your brand? Who determines its direction? Who has created the strongest ties for customer acquisition and engagement? For many brand owners their advertising agency is as close to their brand as they are themselves. The relationship is predicated on the detailed understanding, knowledge and development that these creative providers will [...]

Creative is a very broad term. In the land of marketing it is both a noun and an adjective. See what I’ve done in the title. As a noun it works in two ways, covering both the deliverable and the deliverer. “The creatives are working on the creative. Let’s hope this creative is really creative.” [...]

We love deadlines at the Creative Services Exchange. One of the advantages of having over 12,000 creatives from around the world is that as one working day finishes, another starts. It’s 24*7 creative delivery. So if you really have an urgent deadline, then someone will be there wanting to respond to your brief. And ready [...]

As we talk to marketing directors the world over it’s clear that people have very different ways of approaching their requirements to source and buy creative, marketing, advertising campaigns. Agency, in-house, a combination. And the fact that sometimes something else is needed. There’s no doubting the fact that one size really doesn’t fit all, so [...]

Our latest ‘no alternative’ scenario is possibly a little uncomfortable for some of us. It’s that moment when you realize your choice of first tier agency may not have been quite as perfect as the lunch at Nobu suggested. But the commitment is a long way down the line. An increasing number of agencies no [...]

One of the biggest advantages of using the Creative Services Exchange is its global reach. It’s not an idle claim that you can sit in your office (or on your sofa) in Belgium and have someone respond from Brazil. Recent briefs have come from all corners of the globe and pitches have been equally multi-national. [...]

This week has seen a major debate on the use of the word agency. As challenges to the traditional ad agency model appear, the tweaking starts. And one of the first tweaks is a rebellion against the name – no longer an ad agency, but a – well what exactly? Of course, the point here [...]

Over the last 12-18 months blur Group has been quietly sowing the seeds of a Creative Services revolution. We’ve explained how Crowdsourcing is a technique that corporates can embrace and that creatives don’t need to fear as a loss of revenues, but rather the way to find high-value work that they’d otherwise never encounter. We’ve [...]

At blur Group we’ve learnt a lot from marketing professionals about agency relationships.  We know that they’re as intrinsic to most marketers as their quarterly plan, their budgets and their brand’s reputation. As a consequence, when companies are looking for marketing innovation,  the agency is deemed central to any success. Whereas other outsourcing efforts are [...]

One of a marketer’s rites of passage is writing their first agency brief. It might be to kick off a campaign or to test out a new agency as part of a beauty parade. Briefs take a lot of thought. The right brief leads to the right campaign leads to the right results. But have [...]

The recent publication of a FastCompany piece “The Future of Advertising” has seen the online platforms abuzz with ideas. The #adfuture hashtag generates tweets aplenty and theories abound covering everything from new payment and reward models, to technology-driven, totally-automated agencies, like a manufacturing conveyor belt with campaigns rolling off on to the palettes. In trying [...]

Campaigns Top 10 Creative Agency Ranking has just been released and blur Group debuts at No 7. We’re flattered. To quote: “… most of the creative agencies in our 2010 Top 10 are smaller than they were two years ago. Only one breaks the mould. And they were not even around two years ago.

We’ve been given a sneak look at the latest agency rankings due out next week from a well known marketing magazine. It lists the worlds largest ad agencies. And it will have the industry reeling. blur Group comes in 7th. This is a bit cheeky but we think it’s OK to spill a few beans [...]

This century will usher in the ‘Participation Economy’. With Crowdsourcing as its essential new social and business tool. It’s a new way of working, thinking, cooperating and leading. It is destined to affect the very concept of organization. It can change the way we are managed.

Today marks the launch of blur Group’s next generation website- the latest step in our bid to challenge the world’s largest agencies. We believe Crowdsourcing will redefine the concept of creative agency and marketing services- which is just as well-  we’re the leading Crowdsourced creative group.

In 2008 Maurice Levy, the Chief Executive of the world’s fourth largest advertising and marketing company, Publicis, dropped a marketing bombshell upon his fellow professionals. “The very model of our industry is being called into question,” said Levy. “The model today is no longer valid, no longer relevant.” He was right.

The concept of ‘agency’ or the role of ‘agent’ has not changed much in 100 years. Particularly when it comes to the creative agency. But there’s something a brewing in agency land.

It used to be that great design cost the earth. Leading design agencies positioned themselves as reassuringly expensive. Assured rip off more like. That was before the Internet spawned over 210 Million Websites. Before one third of the US working population found itself in design related jobs. Before Apple. Pre Steve.

The marketing services industry is changing. Big agencies are getting it from all sides. Google has eroded their media buying divisions. Social media is challenging their PR departments, while YouTube is confusing the hell out of TV advertising production. And mobile marketing – well that’s a whole new game of tennis.

Design is rapidly moving from posters and toasters to include processes, systems, and organizations. Design is the accelerator for the company car, the power train for sustainable profits. Design drives innovation, innovation powers brand, brand builds loyalty, and loyalty sustains profits. If you want long-term profits, don’t start with technology—start with design. Start with blur [...]