The Leffler Agency

"Saturdays At The U" Celebrates Tiger Football

2010-07-23T00:03:35Z

For the third consecutive year, Towson University is promoting "Saturdays at the U" as its football season advertising campaign.

The campaign serves to inform fans that Tiger football is more than just a 60-minute football game.

"Saturdays at the U" is a campaign that was developed by the Leffler Agency, a Baltimore-based creative advertising, branding and public relations agency.

"We are closely targeting the Towson and Baltimore County areas with our advertising this year," says Rachel Crawford, Account Executive at the Leffler Agency. "Our focus is to appeal to the average adult, who is looking for something fun to do. We are also reaching out to families who are looking for an affordable and enjoyable outing like the one that Tiger football provides."

"Saturdays at the U" is the Tigers' rallying cry to the entire Baltimore metropolitan area, from students to alumni, neighbors to newcomers, to support the Tigers' football program as they enter the 2010 season.

Bob Leffler, the Founder and President of the Leffler Agency, adds, "'Our 'Saturdays at the U' campaign is all about a great day of the total college football experience in a very comfortable facility. Unitas Stadium ('the U') and Towson Tiger football provide a wholesome, fun atmosphere for all of the greater Baltimore area to enjoy. Our campaign seeks to communicate to an expanded customer base beyond the basic sports fan groups."

Seton Hall Athletics Announces Agreement with The Leffler Agency

2010-07-23T00:00:53Z

Director of athletics Joe Quinlan announced an agreement between Seton Hall Athletics and the Leffler Agency on Wednesday to become the Pirates' agency of record.

"The Leffler Agency brings a wealth of experience in both intercollegiate and professional sports that will benefit our program," Quinlan said. "We are pleased to partner with them as we look to expand our reach in the New Jersey sports community."

7 Ways to KILL Your Advertising Campaign

2010-06-22T00:50:29Z

As easy as marketing and advertising appears on the surface, we often see executives making the same mistakes over and over when it comes to planning, implementing and managing a successful advertising campaign. So without further a due, here are the Top 7 ways to kill your advertising campaign.

1. Give your campaign a chance. Knee jerk changes and cancellations to a campaign is dangerous. It takes time for a campaign to build. A consumer usually needs to see your ad several times before they will act.

2. If your campaign is successful - don't mess with it. Many times people see something going well, and they want to change it, "just because". The old saying, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" fits here.

3. Don't get sold. Advertising sales people will often come to you with packages that better benefit their company's financial goals than yours.

4. Don't mix advertising messages. Keep each message simple so you're not bombarding the customer with too many calls to action or overwhelming laundry lists.

5. Don't overcrowd your ads. Too many small words on a page or billboard causes the reader to gloss over the ad, thus ignoring it.

6. Don't spread yourself too thin. Unless you have a bottomless advertising budget, it doesn't make sense to advertise in every single small publication. As long as you're using a mixture of media outlets (TV, radio, web, print, outdoor) and targeting your audience, your message will get to the people you want it to get to.

7. Don't think your sales reps are all your friends. Some actually are friends, but at the end of the day everyone is working for their own paycheck and often times sales reps have monthly goals or contests they must participate in. Never lose sight of your own goals and needs.

7 Ways to Improve Your Advertising Success

2010-06-16T23:39:56Z

Let's face it, moving the sales needle in today's market landscape is hard enough. Here are seven Leffler Agency strategies that you can employ that can help you succeed.

1. Make sure your campaign is made up of a media mix. (TV, radio, interactive, print, out-of-home, mobile). In today's world, there are so many mediums that it's almost overwhelming. Now, more than ever, you have to make sure you advertise in different areas to reach the most amount people.

2. Keep your campaign image consistent. Do not revamp your look too often. The more a consumer recognizes your product, the better chance they have of remembering it and making a purchase.

3. Practice the art of repetition. The customer needs to see or hear your product name a minimum of 3 times before it's ingrained in their memories.

4. Make sure you properly research your target market. You do not want to waste precious advertising dollars reaching the wrong people.

5. Remember who your target customer is and try to speak to their needs rather than alienate them by trying something too newfangled. Change is good but change for the sake of change could end up costing your company/product more than money.

6. Get your product/company involved in community events. Involvement shows people you care about your/their community and leads to word of mouth advertising because of your great reputation.

7. Include social media in your campaigns! Blogging, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are powerful tools that can spread the word about your product, event or service to create invaluable two-way communication directly to your customers.

2010 Birdland Express

2010-06-16T23:37:47Z

Below are photos from the 2010 version of Birdland Express. The 2009 version won a Baltimore Addy Award.

Naval Academy - "Tradition Never Graduates"

2010-06-16T23:02:25Z

]]>

What is Mass Media?

2010-06-01T01:13:23Z

Because of the proliferation of the types and modes of messaging fostered by the internet and communications technology explosion, the general public is having a tough time defining what mass media is these days.

Traditional media, most notably print media, has taken a hit to online reading and consumption. Radio and TV consumption have also been reduced by various other devices and modes of auditory and visual communication. But, they still command large audience attention. Outdoor still rules in mass instant impressions even though it continues to fight the visual environmentalists.

Social media is now drawing more and more attention. A Facebook or Twitter page with 5,000 followers is powerful. But it still does not equal a radio station with a weekly cumulative audience of 150,000 or a TV spot that hits a few million people nationally. Because viral and social media takes time, it is not real mass media which can hit many with a message in an instant. Large internet sites such as Yahoo, AOL, as well as ad networks are mass media and as such have joined the product line.

But there are "experts" who are selling social media as a replacement for mass media. Social media is an activation of and an adjunct to the mass media message, but it is not an effective brand builder over a short time because its "some-at-a-time" nature makes the short-term audience limited. The long-term audience potential is great, but to put all of the budget against this and to abandon a mix of real mass media is very short-sighted and is the thing that the irresponsible marketers do because it all sounds so good.

Success comes in the volume of messages over the shortest time period. And the campaign with the greatest number of impressions brings the best results.

By Bob Leffler
CEO/Owner

UB listening for conference calls

2010-06-01T00:31:24Z

The landscape of collegiate athletics is potentially in for a seismic shift caused by conference expansion.

Talk of expansion and potentially high-stakes musical chairs began in December when the Big Ten Conference announced it would begin a 12-18 month evaluation on the merits of adding additional teams. The Big Ten currently has 11 teams and could expand to as many as 16.

Why all this talk about expansion? Follow the money, said Tom McElroy, former senior associate commissioner of the Big East and a graduate of St. Bonaventure.

"Membership in varying leagues are pressing conference offices to make more money," said McElroy, now senior vice president/sports division of the Leffler Agency, a sports and entertainment advertising agency. "The cost of business is going up for all of us. If you're able to sit back and take a long-term view of where college athletics has come it's almost like an evolutionary thing. If you apply simple laws of economics and marketplace, it makes sense of what's happening: We're looking for a bigger piece of the pie."

Leffler Agency Enjoying the 2010 Preakness Stakes

2010-05-18T23:15:46Z

2010 Preakness Logo - WBAL-TV

2010-05-13T23:08:04Z

Check out the segment on WBAL-TV detailing the creation of the Preakness Stakes logo.

Baltimore Hockey History: The Last Baltimore Hockey Team....For Now

2010-05-12T14:00:16Z

Two years after the Skipjacks left for Portland, Maine; Bob Teck and Alan Gertner thought it would be time to bring some kind of hockey back to the area, because they had thought it was for the best. These two pump millions of dollars to get the Bandits off the ground. They also had the backing of the Disney Corporation, who designed the raccoon logo and jerseys that were worn on-ice (As an aside, anyone with a lead on where to get one of these jerseys-- let me know). With that kind of clout and the mentality that they would be able to provide a good atmosphere for the fans, there was a positive vibe for the team to come through the struggles and actually make Baltimore more than a hockey footnote.

The ideology was superb to start. Teck said that with over 30 area high schools having teams and kids playing in the streets, it was the right time in order to expand the landscape of popularity. The ownership team learned, also, from the mistakes of the past. An article done by current NFL Network contributer Jason LaCanfora about the new team showed what the Bandits team had learned from what the Skipjacks could not.

The Baltimore Bandits will market extensively and promote the sport. The Skipjacks did little in those areas to boost the team. Bob Leffler, whose ad agency handled the Skipjacks, now works for the Bandits. He said the new ownership is consumed with making hockey work.

"Gertec is putting together a massive marketing campaign," Leffler said. "They are dedicated to spending $1 million to advertising. The last time we had that kind of financial support was with the Blast [of the Major Indoor Soccer League] in the mid-'80s. They were drawing 11,000 fans a game then."

Bandits merchandise has been in stores since mid-July, the team already has begun advertising on Orioles radio broadcasts and it is negotiating with three local radio stations for broadcast rights. It will focus its campaign on television and billboard advertising in the coming months.

Over Analysis Kills

2010-04-28T23:59:44Z

Advertising is really simple to understand if marketing professionals would just use logic and understand how the human brain works.

The two functions, absorbing a message (memory) and acting on it (the effective domain of the brain), are what it is all about. That means that there must be a media mix for an ad campaign to work.

Outdoor (aka out-of-home), radio, mobile SMS messaging, and TV primarily talk to memory because they are momentary messages that come in multiples. Print, internet and direct mail can be controlled by the individual because they are at consumers fingertips and can be reconsidered. They are the prompts to messages that are in the memory and can result in action or purchase.

If you don't understand this and you seek to analyze pieces of the media mix, you have the potential to KILL the campaign by declaring a piece of the puzzle as ineffective.

The Leffler Agency once had a client who insisted we cancel radio from a radio-print mix because the customers were not putting it down on one of those sophomoric exit polls that the company had created. We killed the radio and the campaign died because no cognitive messaging took place. The moral of the story...DON'T MESS WITH THE MIX!

By Bob Leffler
CEO/Owner

Condo Crisis

2010-04-28T23:46:00Z

]]> Episode 4

Mass Transit

2010-04-28T23:38:54Z

]]> Episode 3

Real Estate Tax Reform

2010-04-20T03:19:06Z

]]> Episode 2