Maybe we did this

I seriously doubt that I’m the only one in this business who checks out competitors’ web sites.

Sometimes, I like to look at agency web sites to see what’s new and exciting and sometimes, I just want to see what my friends are up to.

What amazes me when I do this is how often an agency web site isn’t really representative of the agency. The “work experience” or “clients” section is often tainted with old work, work somebody did at a previous agency or clients that that agency had and so on. I have one friend whose agency features in the “Portfolio” section an ad he did two agencies and nearly 25 years ago. Another agency owned by somebody up the road calls it “Work” and also has stuff that is years and years old. And nowhere do they make this clear.

Before anybody starts to research our site and jumps down my throat about this, not everything on our site is something we did last week, either. There are ads there for former clients, one of which (Icelandair) we haven’t had for five years. There’s a radio spot I did for Wheaton Plaza that is a solid 10 years old. The rest of it is fairly current.

I’m not saying don’t put your best work on your site.

What I’m saying is that I think showing work is more useful to a prospective client or employee if it’s really representative of the agency. And current. Not representative of what someone at the agency did 25 years ago or at another agency, or what the agency in a previous incarnation did for a client that doesn’t exist anymore.

I guess I also question a bit the come-clean honesty of listing clients on your site that someone at the agency worked on at a previous job. Even if you fudge it a bit by calling it “client experience” or “work experience”. I can see a new agency that doesn’t really have clients of its own yet taking this approach to establish bona-fides. They’d have to. But I’m not sure it’s shooting straight to let people believe the agency worked for a particular client when, in fact, someone at the agency did.

I worked for Martin Marietta 25 years ago. Maybe we ought to include Lockheed-Martin on our client list.

There is nothing on our site from anybody’s previous job ― even though there have been folks here with very tasty books and previous clients that would look good anywhere. Neither is there work on our site that I don’t feel represents the way we think and the kind of work we do right now. Nothing is on there that I didn’t work on. And we don’t list every client we or anybody who works here ever did a project for on our “client list”, either. Maybe we’d be bigger if we played it a little more fast and loose on the web site.

Come to think of it, when I worked for Martin, one of our aluminum customers was Anheuser-Busch. I should go update our web site.

Wouldn’t that be impressive?