Notable Agency Blogs

It's encouraging to meet more practitioners on the agency side who walk the talk. In many cases, as you will see, the blogs are created and maintained by individuals as their own personal thinking ground. In others, they are the effort of a small group on behalf of the agency. Many I read very regularly, some I visit with on occasion.

In no particular order:

• Signal vs. Noise - by 37 Signals
• Micro Persuasion - by Steve Rubel (Edelman)
• Sixty Second View - by David Brain (Edelman, Europe)
• Experience Matters - by Critical Mass
• Logic+Emotion - by David Armano (Critical Mass)
• Ad Literate - by Richard Huntington (Saatchi & Saatchi)
• Going Social Now - by Avenue-A Razorfish
• Cultural Fuel - by Leo Burnett Germany
• Persuasionism - by Persuasion Arts & Sciences
• Paul Isakson - by Paul Isakson (space150)
• PSFK - by Piers Fawkes and team
• Mindblob - by Luc Debaisieaux (JWT)
• Useful Lunacy - by Tim Brunelle (Hello Viking)
• Jaffe Juice - by Joseph Jaffe (Crayon)
• Six Pixels of Separation - by Mitch Joel (Twist Image)
• Inside the Marketer's Studio - by David Berkowitz (360i)
• 360 Digital Influence - by Ogilvy PR
• Influential Marketing Blog - by Rohit Bhargava (Ogilvy)
• Metacool - by Diego Rodriguez (IDEO)
• Techno//Marketer - by Matt Dickman (Fleishman-Hillard)
• Brendan Cooper- by Brendan Cooper (Fleishman-Hillard, UK)
• Jerry's Juicebar - by Jerry Johnson (Brodeur)
• PR Squared - by Todd Defren (SHIFT)
• Social Media Explorer - by Jason Falls (Doe-Anderson)
• The Buzz Bin - by Livingston Communications (now part of Social Media Group)

UPDATE: from the comments (thank you and keep them coming):

• Idea Peepshow - by Fast Horse
• New Media Buzz - by Michael Leis (Emerge Digital)
• One to One Interactive - by Oto Insight
• The Future Buzz - by Adam Singer (Pierson Grant)
• Noah Brier - by Noah Brier (Barbarian Group)
• Brains on Fire - by staff at Brains on Fire
  
• Leigh Himel - by Leigh Himel (Twist Image)
• Get Shouty - by Katie Chatfield (White Agency)
• Rob Campbell - by Rob Campbell (Cynic)
• Three Minds - by Organic
• A Media Circ.us - by Adam Brotiman (Morpheus Media)
• Scamp - by BBH London
• Welcome to Optimism - by Wieden + Kennedy
• CST Advertising - by David Trott
• Fallon Planning - by Fallon
• PR Bristol - by Montage Communications
• Zeus Jones - by Adrian Ho
• Touchdowns & Fumbles - by Veritas
• Donor Power - by Jeff Brooks (Merkle)
• Fine Print - by GCI Group Canada
• Toothless Tiger - by Toothless Tiger
• The Ad Contrarian - by Bob Hoffman (Hoffman/Lewis)
  

I'm quite sure this, although comprehensive, is not an exhaustive list. What other agency blogs out there are notable?

Comments

[Michael Leis]

Great list! I'm pretty proud of the blog I write at newmediabuzz.com for Emerge Digital, the agency I work for. ;)

[Amanda]

I second the great list comment. Fast Horse, based in Minneapolis, recently launched its agency blog Idea Peepshow in May http://www.fasthorseinc.com/blog

[PRJack]

I know it seems self serving to flog our own stuff, but in all honesty I was reading Veritas Communications' "Touchdowns & Fumbles" newsletter (not a blog) before I joined the agency. It's a great weekly recap of who did well and who didn't purely from a communications standpoint. In this day and age of focusing on everything new, sometimes it's good for us communicators to remember what to do or not do when it comes to actually communicating. The venues may change as from trad media to online... but core communications skills still apply. It's at http://www.touchdownsandfumbles.com/.

[Chris]

One to One interactive Blog:
www.otoinsights.com

(mainly focussed on Neuromarketing right now)

[Beth Robinson]

Okay, I know this is a very basic question, and I feel like I'm raising my hand to ask what is water, but how do you define an agency? I searched through your blog entries and a couple of google pages and it seems to be simply be a specialized firm that does marketing, often advertising work, for other companies that want to sell products or services. So it seems to be a counterpart to calling a company a consultancy or a manufacturer or a distributor.

But I still feel I'm missing something, some cultural connotation. I also found the term "agency model" a couple places, as in it is dead or being reinvented, but it still seemed to refer to a company being hired by another company to provide a specialized service. Please help.

Thank you, Beth

[Todd Defren]

So honored to be on this list. Thank you!

[Mitch Joel - Twist Image]

very cool list - my guess is that there are many,many more who who will add their links.

Awesome.

[Matt Dickman]

Valeria -- It's a real compliment to be on your reading list. Thanks for the shout out!

A couple more to add are:
Adam Singer (Pierson Grant) http://thefuturebuzz.com

Noah Brier (Barbarian Group) http://www.noahbrier.com

[Tom Markey]

Not a company blog, but Adam Kmiec offers a lot of interesting things. It's a bit of a mix though because his blog covers personal/family views and industry thoughts. There's enough good stuff in there to warrant an RSS subscription. www.thekmiecs.com.

[PRJack]

Hey Beth, it's not that crazy of a question! The info you've found is technically correct. Agencies are indeed hired by other companies to provide specialized services. The term Agency indicates that we are an agent representing a client's interests and doing business for them on their behalf--whether that is advertising, marketing, public relations (including media relations), issues or crisis communications, investor relations, etc.

And because we try to have such close ties to our clients' business, the relationship 'should' go much further than just 'supplying' something. In discussions with our clients they all say that they are looking for a company that will be their 'partner' rather than merely a 'supplier'.

A partner shares goals, vision, passion and provides strategic guidance. Whereas a supplier, well, supplies things (not that that is bad, it's just a bit more separate from overall business dealings and direction). You will often hear that an agency is like a 'virtual department' because it is so closely tied to the business functionality of a client. At least that's what we strive for!

Hope that helped!

[Gavin Heaton]

I would also add:
Brains on Fire - http://brainsonfire.com/blog/
Leigh Himel (Twist Image) - http://leighhimel.blogspot.com/
Katie Chatfield (White Agency) - http://getshouty.com
Rob Campbell (Cynic) - http://robcampbell.wordpress.com/

[David Berkowitz]

Thanks, Valeria. You've got a great list, including many of my favorites.

I'll throw out a couple more I always read: Organic's official Three Minds blog at threeminds.organic.com/ and Adam Broitman of Morpheus Media writing amediacirc.us .

[Matt]

Our blog is www.prbristol.co.uk and it has a social network (NING) for people who make and break the news in the West of England - www.prbristol.ning.com.

[David Brain]

nice list thanks. Quite a few here that are new to me so the aggregator just took a bit more strain.

[Dion Hughes]

thanks for the mention. you've got most of my favorites there, but here are a couple more that spring to mind... i'm sure there's still many more...
Scamp
Zeus Jones
Welcome To Optimism
Dave Trott
Fallon Planning

[Adam Singer]

Thanks for the inclusion, great list!

[Valeria Maltoni]

Thank you all for the great additions to my reading list and for visiting. Just a point of clarification - since this conversation is about blogs, I have listed only those shops that do have a blog. I will check out the newsletters (in general, I am not keen on signing up to read and access, BTW) and agency sites.

[ebay account business]

This was a great list of blogs. I visit a lot of the daily. Keep up the great work with this blog.

[Rob @ Cynic]

I'm very touched you have put me on this but there must be some mistake, I write rubbish - everyone tells me so!

Thanks again though, I appreciate it very much.

[Doug Firebaugh]

I have been reading your blog for a while and learning quite a lot-good post and great list-super eclectic blog list-your post goes out on twitter from me almost daily- thanks-keep up the Rocking Hot Content

Thanks again!

[Mary]

Thanks for putting together this list and including my AARF co-worker Shiv Singh's Going Social Now blog. There are a number of other AARF blogs as well -- too many to list here in the Comments so I'll point you to the information section of the AARF page on Facebook: http://www.new.facebook.com/people/Shiv_Singh/507424176#/pages/Avenue-A-Razorfish/5669564445?ref=ts

Shameless plug: I edit another AARF blog, headlightblog.com, which is devoted to digital automotive. Our contributors include
members of the Strategy, User Experience, Account Planning, Technology
and Advanced Marketing Solutions teams at Avenue A | Razorfish.

Thanks again!

[paul isakson]

Thank you, Valeria. Very kind of you.

The link for Zeus Jones (that Dion mentioned) is: http://zeusjones.blogspot.com/

[Divij Bhatia]

Thank you very much for putting this list together. If you have any advertising/pr/new media inquiries that need to be done come check us out at 451 marketing.

www.451marketing.com

[Christopher]

Great list. And since I'm in the process of relocating to NY to be with my partner (and thus changing jobs), I feel like this just became my starter list job hunting.

[PRJack]

What's that? Keep them coming? Well silly me, I talked about our newsletter but didn't include the URL for the blog version. Just to recap what Veritas does... we do a weekly round up of communications 'touchdowns' and 'fumbles'. The TD&F blog is at http://www.touchdownsblog.ca/