That is the question that BzzAgent, a Boston-based word-of-mouth marketing agency asked. And they figured out that a conversation by one of its 425,000 agents on behalf of a brand is worth half a dollar. “A 50 cent cost per conversation is the norm,” is what BzzAgent president, Dave Balter says. A recent article in Brandweek talks about how the word-of-mouth marketing industy is lurching towards some sort of standardized ROI metric, but that still hasn’t been defined.

Some say that calls into question how effective this type of advertising/viral marketing really is. If you can’t put a figure on what is being gained, how can you know that you’re reaching your specific target?

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Anon blogger, The Denver Egotist, sent AgencySpy this link to the above vid and their site, explaining who The Denver Egotist really is.

And in hopes that AS would enjoy it. We did. You will too.

Thanks Denver Egotist for “attempting to help Denver suck less, daily”. Good job!

Slow news day? Yes. But it’s also nice to hear about good news for agencies for a change. So here’s some new biz news for Tampa’s Pyper Paul + Kennedy. According to the Tampa Bay Business journal, they’ll be handling the North American and international advertising work for Pirelli Tire. The TB Biz Journal notes that, “Pirelli is headquartered in Milan, Italy, but maintains North American operations in Rome, Ga. It had reported sales of $6.38 billion in 2007.” A quick AS tip box email also mentioned that PP+K recently won the national ASPCA of NY account. Congrats guys!

Energy BBDO/Chicago’s new chief creative officer is Dan Fietsam. Fietsam will be leaving his role as the executive creative director of Publicis in Seattle. He’s replacing Marty Orzio, who is resigning and heading back to NY resigned in April. According the Chicago Sun-Times, Fietsam was “an instrumental part of the team that worked on the key Bud Light business at DDB. Fietsam also worked at Leo Burnett and the Chicago outpost of Young & Rubicam early in his career.”

Thanks to Adfreak, I just learned that The Local Government Association, which represents councils across Britain, has a new campaign to raise public awareness of the different kinds of services the town halls provide. They are producing posters, like the one above, that show some of the problems that the towns have to take care of.

According to the LGA, “the campaign is meant to highlight the essential work done by workers such as street cleaners and restaurant inspectors.”

One of the posters shows a man out at what appears to be a nice dinner and the slogan reads, “My council makes sure this romantic meal won’t give us the trots.”

This worthy these posters sully the image of life in modern Britain. Others think it may be breaching some type of advertising rules of decency.

I think it’s unnecessary to advertise a service that you are required to provide. It’s not like people will increase the amount of taxes they pay just because they know you’re doing your job. Sounds like money wasted on an ad campaign to me. Although, I must admit there something comforting in knowing my dinner won’t give me the trots.

Word on the street is that Old Navy has fired their in-house Creative Director, Landis Smithers. (and by “on the street”, I mean the AS tip box).

This is “To the joy and relief of most staff” as per anon tipster. Though Adrant had some interesting things to say about Mr. Smithers, so that sentimic seems like it could be spot on.

Rumor also has it that Old Navy has notified the staff that they are looking to ditch the small shop Chandelier Creative (NY) in favor of a larger agency soon, but have not said where they are headed just yet.

It only makes sense that they’d be taking a new direction. Sure the ads have become more cheeky, but that hasn’t translated into sales. Their “fashion” has become more expensive and recent articles have noted the decline in their sales, as much as 6% in April.

It will be interesting to see how they try and reshape the face of Old Navy yet again. Or will it?

So, who saw this one coming? All the commotion created over Epoch’s “fake” JCP ad got their Bronze Lion snatched back from them.

It’s reported that, the organizers of the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival talked with everyone involved, and Epoch Films, requested to withdraw the entry for a spot, titled “Speed Dressing”.

CEO Philip Thomas is said to be “pleased” with the outcome, and happy that the festival didn’t have to actually revoke the award. They are taking the work off the Cannes Lions 2008 website and striking the win from the record.

Lesson learned? Guess we’ll have to wait until nex year to see.

Cable channels are bringing in more money than broadcast channels in advertising dollars this year. According to NY Times, “Preliminary figures for advance sales indicate that the cable channels will collectively sell about $8 billion in airtime to advertisers this season, up 7 to 8 percent from last year’s total.” Broadcast channels are said to have raised their numbers by only about 1%.

As the Times points out, this shift in advertising dollars from broadcast to cable has been happening for a few years now. But this year it’s an obvious gain for cable networks. That may have something to do with how bad network tv sucks these days.

It’s fair to point out that the ad game has changed, so ratings are not the only reason for the shift. Advertisers are having to vary their targets so they are reaching out in ways they weren’t before. There are a lot more niche channels, which certainly pull advertisements away from the general market and the broadcast networks. And, last winter’s writers strike is cited as one the reasons that people headed over to cable channels for entertainment and therefore forcing those ad dollars to follow.

There really hasn’t been, in my opinion a real push to draw back that viewership and regain those ad dollars. How about product placement? Oh, right.

AS just got another tip that “at least 2 ECDs and a bunch of lower level creatives have gotten the axe today” at Doner. This can’t possibly have anything to do with Minute Maid. No, you think? That was quick.

I bet they wish they had just said the wrong name during sex, then the only repercussion would be their jeans being thrown on the lawn.

Anyone know if it’s the ECD with the Tropicana fixation that got canned?

What’s the quickest way to lose a client? Continually call their brand the wrong name in a client presentation.

According to an email that AS got, that is supposedly what Doner’s new ECD kept doing with Minute Maid. Apparently, his preferred brand is Tropicana and he couldn’t be bothered to remember the names Minute Maid and Simply Orange. That is worse than calling the wrong name during sex. You can’t even use the age old “thst’s just my pet name for you” excuse. I guess this account is up for review now.

Here’s a little advice- next time just call them “baby”. That way no one gets hurt.