It is about that time these days isn’t it? You wake up and your day is arranged according to time and place. I’ve got to be here at this time and over there in a meeting by this time. What about time makes time so awesome? In my opinion, time is a limit or restriction, which forces an individual to meet the targeted time as pre-set within the individuals’ schedule or agenda. Time makes or breaks an individual’s ability as well as attitude. When a person can maintain a schedule adequately, that person feels good about themselves, leaving them with a sense of accomplishment at the end of the day…Lord knows we do not always have the privilege of time on our side.

That same schedule that restricts the length of time each activity or project will take, can work against an individual as well as their attitude. When one task on your agenda slips slightly over the restricted or pre-set time, and appropriate time management was not considered in the development of the schedule or unscheduled events occur, we run into the time chase! Time management is something our advertising company does extremely well. Time management is one of the crucial and and most expensive functions of a company’s success or failure. This is one of the main reasons advertising agencies have difficulty competing with DDA. Everything that is requested of our advertising services from conference calls to in-house meetings are all planned ahead to the proverbial “T”. 

Most advertising companies are overly conscientious about time management and being cost-effective. They run into problems because they over spend, and under deliver. More often then not, these companies make too many adjustments instead of letting their skilled web graphics designers use their talents as they were hired to do! Not letting talented individuals do what they do best is like asking an elephant to be deaf! It will not happen and the whole project will be adjusted to the point where the manager or supervisor of the project should have just performed the work themselves…sometimes you just got to let the skilled do their own thing, and provide them with the specs up front as opposed to during the work, which at this point begins to diminish the cost-effectiveness of the projects. This is one of the reasons that advertising companies tend to do lay-offs within the economy’s ups and downs…they are unable to maintain some level or average ground where productivity and cost-effectiveness meet. Therefore, the talent, money, and time are all wasted instead of nourished and it is always going to be about that time.

They say bad habits die hard. It should also be said that good habits are a laborious birth. At DDA, doing the right thing is NOT a matter of unlearning bad habits, but rather the articulated and dedicated practice of doing the right thing.

Most advertising agencies are born of deception and subterfuge. Example after example abounds of new agencies being formed by one or two account representatives who steal a few clients and set up a business of their own. The ease of doing this is enhanced by the fact that almost by definition, advertising agencies often don’t really do the marketing or advertising design and production themselves. Outside design and production houses, like DDA, serve the advertising agency industry by providing in-depth graphic design, photography, video production, 2D and 3D animation, programming, search marketing, copywriting, website design, ecommerce and other services. DDA provides them all.

Guaranteed, immediate clients and a readily available source of design and production make for an easy advertising agency business start-up. What is difficult is servicing the clients well over the long term and sustaining growth. What is wrong is the perpetuation of all of the bad habits the founders of the breakaway agency learned at their former place of employment and integrated into their new work process and client relationship procedures.

In this way bad habits not only die hard, they are perpetuated and spawned. Some of the bad habits may have actually been more benign at the original advertising agency due to the large size, or specific nature of the clients and industries they serve. When transferred to a smaller, less capable environment, they can mutate and become malignant.

Here’s the irony; the backgrounds of the founders at DDA are an organic mix of corporate marketing, B2B and B2C advertising, retail store and manufacturing ownership and general business management and consulting. NO advertising agency experience, no breakaway business start-up, no mutated process and poor client relationship habits.

After fourteen years of steady and sustained growth, innovation, and pioneering processes and procedures, DDA has all but reinvented the advertising agency. After fourteen years we are still fresh, eager, energized, and creating new habits daily by always striving to do the right thing.

This past weekend, I went wine tasting with my husband. As novices, we don’t necessarily swirl the wine in the glass just so or perform all the well-known techniques just right, but we enjoy experiencing the different tastes and smells each bottle has to offer. Under the wine umbrella, there are different variations, including but not limited to merlot, chardonnay, blush, pinot grigio, and riesling, and within each type there are those that are dry or more acidic, those that are sweet or tart, and those that are aged six months to six years and so on. The flavors of each can run the gamut from fruity with specific floral aromas to spiced with a carmel or butterscotch aftertaste.

At the end of the trip, my husband and I were able to agree on a bottle to take home that suited our tastes best. I couldn’t help but think that this process could be applied to that of website design, brochure design, video production, trade show graphics, and more in the field of advertising. While other advertising agencies often utilize a one-size-fits-all approach when it comes to design and development, Dynamic Digital Advertising (DDA) takes on every project as a unique venture that needs customization based on the business, organization, and target audience.

Just like in wine tasting, in website design, there are many different types of websites - ecommerce,  Flash, database, corporate, medical, etc. - and within a certain type, the possibilities (like the flavors) are virtually endless. But unlike the vineyards, we (at DDA) make sure our clients end up with a final product that is exclusive to their company and tailor fit to their distinctive needs. With our team of professionals, we don’t just choose from an extensive list of existing materials, we create it from scratch.

Today, I am writing about the writing of the blog, as well as my usual submissions assignments and accounts receivable duties.

Our blog writing is an interesting assignment where each of DDA’s employees describes what he/she is doing. The writers write about their copywriting services, as well as their additional roles within our advertising company. The website designers may blog about their new custom web design that they just created or a graphic designer may talk about their design for a new brochure and introduce themselves as a graphic design specialist.

The point being is that all of Dynamic Digital Advertising (DDA) employees, myself included, write about our daily tasks and assignments and how we plan on handling a project or the tasks we are working on. This is the creativity which separates DDA apart from all other advertising agencies.

At Dynamic Digital Advertising (DDA), we have a staff of talented and degreed individuals, which include progammers, copywriters, videographers, animation artists, photographers, web developers, search engine optimization specialists, graphic designers, project coordinators, and more. While many advertising agencies employ freelancers that are remotely based and often times disconnected from the work involved in a project aside from that of their own, DDA has all creative team members available in-house for linear production and comprehensive collaboration.

For example, the work I do as an advertising Copywriter for a brochure is not considered seperate from design, but rather part of the whole overall concept. The text supports the illustrations and vice versa so the brochure functions as one cohesive piece that conveys the “right” collective message. This approach is applied to all service areas of our business. No team member, whether they be man or woman, animator or writer, is considered more important than another. We work together to accomplish the objectives of our clients. All pieces of a project are critical to its success, even down to the proofreading done for accurate functionality and spelling.

Our ability to communicate and work together for a common goal is one of the many ways that make DDA the better choice for your advertising needs. We are a team of professionals that have obtained degrees from around the world and have come together to work on a level playing field and provide the very best quality work for our clients.

When I started working here I only really knew that work was done in my area of expertise (websites).

In a short time, I saw that DDA does more than I could have imagined. In addition to working on all aspects of websites, we do video, 3D animation, scriptwriting, advertising, search engine optimization, photography, graphic design, and copywriting. I probably missed something in that listing.

I’m not even sure how we do that much, but we do. It’s like a one-stop shop for your business. We have all of the best high-tech products, equipment, and staff to get the best products around. Our new video studio is packed with even more equipment than we used to have, which opens the doors for new possibilities in video for what we can do.

There are top-of-the-line computers at every desk, and state-of-the-art software for the entire staff.

If you can think it, we can do it.