Hello there – I’m Danielle Destrade Ali, and I’m the newest addition to The Cyphers Agency. Jocelyn introduced me earlier this week, and shared how I will be contributing to Push-n-Pull, the Word of Mouth division of the agency. As a social media devotee, working in this department is a great fit for me! For the next few months, I’ll be blogging about my experience as the newbie around here.

The Cyphers Agency is my first job at an advertising agency, and while I have experience in online marketing for various organizations, I had no idea what to expect at an agency. Would the workplace be like a modern day Mad Men? I hoped not – I’m not really in favor of smoking indoors. While I didn’t know what I was walking into, I did know that I would be working with people who had a lot more advertising experience than myself. I was more than a little nervous about being able to measure up to all the talent here.

My first day, I sat in on a brainstorming meeting, and expected to just observe and learn. I was a bit surprised when my colleagues were interested in my opinion! I quickly discovered that The Cyphers Agency has a friendly culture where the members of our team are constantly collaborating. Even the open layout of the office lends itself to teamwork. This lack of pretentiousness really allows everyone to share their great ideas freely. I’ve been invited to contribute my own suggestions from the very beginning, and I’ve helped come up with awesome plans for our clients. I love being a part of a team where everyone works together and supports each other, and its been exciting to get validation from my super talented co-workers.

Of course, I am still just getting my feet wet. While I’ve already had opportunities to contribute creatively, I know I will continue to grow and gain more responsibility. I’m excited to continue working, especially with our campaign for The National Chicken Council, which is an excellent example of how social media marketing can be fun, useful and effective all at once!

Keep checking back to read more about what I’m working on and learning about.

The Cyphers Agency is glad to announce the addition of Bailey Whittaker to the Push-n-Pull division, helping us strengthen our word of mouth efforts!

Bailey, a life long resident of the nearby Annapolis area, graduated from Towson University in May 2010.  She majored in Mass Communication with tracks in Advertising, Public Relations, and Marketing.  She enjoys listening to Jack Johnson,  eating seven layer dip, wearing flip flops, and going on beach vacations.

Bailey will be responsible for spreading the word about our clients. This involves supporting others in the WOM department by blogging, conducting internet research, implementing marketing strategy, running flash mobs and events, learning all things social media, and helping with any other creative ideas we may think up.

Welcome, Bailey! We look forward to working with you!

Here is a really interesting video with some statistics about the current state of the internet and how it has evolved. Videos like this help us step back from the minutiae and realize how fast we are moving.

JESS3 / The State of The Internet from Jesse Thomas on Vimeo.

…wow. That was cool.

While we’re at it, here is another video with cool statistics. It’s a little preachy at the end, but we like the overall idea:

At any advertising agency, there are many parts. There is usually some mix of creatives, account service, word of mouth/social media, traffic, and PR professionals. (Hint – if you want to see the people behind The Cyphers Agency, click on some of the links in this blog post)

We thought it would be a good idea to let you know what all of these people do, and why, when you put us all together, we come up with such great ideas.

Account Service – The people in account service at The Cyphers Agency are constantly making sure that our clients objectives are being accomplished. They oversee all projects and campaigns, and provide strategic and planning insight throughout the process. Communication (to keep clients happy, and keep the agency “account”-able) is essential with account service personnel.

Creative Department – These groovy folks aren’t just the ones creating ideas, websites, building facebook and iPhone apps, designing print ads, and filming television ads. Yeah, they do all that, but their most important job is conveying ad messages and accomplishing strategic objectives in unique and memorable ways. If you can see it, these people did it. And they put a lot of thought behind the idea.

Word of Mouth / Social Media (we call it “Push-N-Pull” here at Cyphers) – This department spreads the word for our clients. Whether our clients want to increase awareness, increase web traffic, improve customer service, search engine optimization, increase customer reviews, (BREATH….) perform market research, distribute promotions, handle a crisis, or just start “Facebook-ing” and “Twittering”, this is the department that will be getting your message to the people that want to hear it.

Traffic – This department handles the behind-the-scenes management of all the jobs. Who needs what? Where does that job need to go next? Traffic handles the who, what, when, where, and why for all of our clients. Most importantly, our traffic department ensures that all of our jobs are out the door to clients on time.

So hopefully you now have a greater understanding of how advertising agencies work. Why does ours work so well? Because we don’t just do our jobs separately. From brainstorms to our open office to staff meetings to following each other on social networks, there is a lot of communication here at The Cyphers Agency. That way, when something important happens, we all know about it quickly. Or when someone has an idea, we can all build on it quickly. This is just one of the reasons that The Cyphers Agency is greater than the sum of it’s parts.

Yesterday, as I walked into work with our creative director, my attention was brought to a pile of phone books lying on the ground beneath our mailbox. Darren, our CD, noted that they were for our office complex to use, but that they had been sitting there for about a year. A YEAR!

The nearly untouched pile of phone books got our minds turning. How long ago was it that EVERYONE wanted a spot in the Yellow Pages? It was one of the best tools to use in any print campaign.

We don’t mean to continually beat it into the ground, but times are changing. Web 2.0 is happening. It’s no longer the way of the future. Need a number? Google it. Need to find a company? Google it. Advertisers need to step up and embrace new mediums to really meet their customers.

We also don’t mean for you or your company to jump the metaphorical traditional advertising ship. Not at all. Print media is still relevant and can have a place in an advertising campaign. We’re just saying that it can’t be the only weapon in your arsenal. And more than anything, we believe in integration: using the right tools for the right audience, mixing necessary mediums.

So if you are one of those people or companies that is stuck in that traditional mindset of only using print advertising, you better step up your game and embrace new ways of communication. Because if you don’t, you’ll get left behind, just like the pile of untouched phone books sitting on the cold, hard ground outside of our office.