So one thing I want to bitch about before I go on holiday is the lethargy of agencies.
For an industry that claims to be forward thinking, pragmatic and full of energy, momentum and ideas – I am astounded how slow many of them are to react unless …
1 There is a new pitch
2 A client threatens to walk
What’s even funnier is how slow so many of them are interms of looking after their own staffs needs and wants.
I think pretty much every monotonous, corporate mission statement I’ve ever read pays some pithy homage to the staff being ‘their best asset’ … and yet when they actually have a chance to prove it, they are slower than a snail carrying his weekly shopping bags.
Payrises get held back …
Vacancies take an age to be filled …
Job offers take forever to be made …
Equipment is updated at a rate where it is already obsolete …
You name it, the majority of agencies do it.
Of course interms of what they ‘claim’ … you’d think you were watching a category that could take on Formula One for speed but far too often, it’s main obsession is with what has happened rather than what they can make happen.
My fave is when they come out in the press banging on about some fancy new job they’ve created – hiring someone with a title like CONTENT PLANNER, DESIGN PLANNER, DIGITAL DM STRATEGIST, INTERACTIVE CONTENT PLANNER – when underneath it all, it’s often very similar to a job someone else was doing before …
1 It became fashionable
2 A client would happily pay a premium for.
A perfect example of this is the rise of Channel and Content Planners.
Personally … and I’m sure quite a few people will disagree with me … I think they’re a load of wank.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s not the role I am criticising [though Content Planning does make me smile for all the wrong reasons] … it’s the fact that this was the sort of thing great Media Strategists were doing twenty years ago.
I have some very talented friends who are Channel and/or Content Planners and after much interrogation, none of them has been able to satisfy me they’re doing something dramatically different to when they were a Media Strategists, Planners or Heads Of Copy.
Far too often agencies talk the talk but don’t walk the walk … they’ve been banging on about media neutral ideas for decades and in the main failed miserably to make it happen.
OK … OK … not all agencies have failed and I have to acknowledge clients have played a major role in this lethargy, but it’s still sad the industry treats the creation of a video game [ie: for BK] as the second coming of communication!!!
You can bet your backside that next year they’ll be a billion entries into Cannes of Video Game solutions for clients … or environmental concepts … or Youtube only campaigns, it’s pathetic!
From a consumer perspective, trial and error hasn’t hurt Apple … exploration hasn’t destroyed Virgin … innovation is yet to undermine NIKE [if anything, it enhances their consumer appeal] and yet our industry – made up of all these supposed cutting-edge organisations – sits there waiting for someone else to make a ‘first move’ because they’re all too frightened incase it results in them being ridiculed by the industry at large.
All this results in is more HEADLINES about agencies opening on Second Life or creating a Content Division or starting an Interactive Department or investing in a new process methodology which is set to REVOLUTIONISE the advertising industry – even though the end result is the same old bland bollocks that has gone on time and time before.
Where has the ingenuity gone?
Where’s the bravery?
Where’s the experimentation?
Where’s the leadership?
And no, Kevin Roberts is not an acceptable response.
Look, I am not saying we should discard the old … far from it, there’s huge, huge, huge value in looking at the lessons of the past … and certainly not all agencies behave this way, however if the majority want industry to start valuing them again, maybe they should start to include speed, exploration and bravery back into their ‘equation’ – because if all they do is continue to look through the ‘rear view mirror’, they’re just walking steadily towards their own demise.
Thanks to Paul for finding this moment of unintelligible genius.
Have to say, when I watched it reminded me of a particular Account Director I worked with who would leave meetings with an air of smugness despite clients scratching their head as to what the hell they’d just been subjected to for the last hour.
Happy times … oh hang on, no they weren’t … they were shit.
Seb – a German – is relocating to England – European Heaven [ahem!] – and is under the impression he might find the actual ‘moving bit’, full of hassles, frustrations and expense.
Because I am going to be away for a few weeks, I have created this particular post so that Seb can liberate his soul of all ‘moving negativity’ as well as – where necessary – seek advice from fellow ‘subjects of the Empire’ on how best to handle life in London.
This is just one example of how we help our European cousins and should anyone like to offer some more proactive advice, feel free to post it here.
Auf wiedersehen me duck … [I’m from Nottingham, not Newcastle!]
A while back, I wrote a post on the power of ‘unplanned planning’ … or as is more commonly known, [perceptual] truth in advertising.
Well my mate Brian has just sent me something that is another sort-of example of that thinking, except …
1 It’s more TRUTH IN DESCRIPTION than in advertising.
2 it’s very funny.
3 It’s probably the output of an evil-genius with Photoshop, but it’s nice to think it’s real.
Let that be a warning to all marketers, think-before-you-write-before-you-launch, haha!
PS: I’ve not gone away yet so I am still in possession of my ‘vitals’ … however God protect me if there is so much as a comma on this blog after Wednesday, ha!
So my Mum arrives in Singapore today and I can’t wait to see her.
Unfortunately I’ll have to as I am still in Australia – but I fly back tonight so it’ll be lovely to give her a big hug when I finally walk through my door.
Quite alot is happening with me over the next week or so – and then I bugger off to Spain for a holiday – so blogging more or less stops till around mid/late Sept.
I know … I know … this probably doesn’t bother you in the slightest, but let me live in my delusional state for a little while – it doesn’t hurt anyone other than me, ha!
Anyway, feel free to pop by every now to see if I’ve succumbed to the desire for posting ranting nonsense [even though Jill will kick me in the nuts if I so much as look at a computer, let alone use one] … and until my ‘official return’, I wish you days of fun-filled anger happiness!
Filed under: Comment
So one thing I want to bitch about before I go on holiday is the lethargy of agencies.
For an industry that claims to be forward thinking, pragmatic and full of energy, momentum and ideas – I am astounded how slow many of them are to react unless …
1 There is a new pitch
2 A client threatens to walk
What’s even funnier is how slow so many of them are interms of looking after their own staffs needs and wants.
I think pretty much every monotonous, corporate mission statement I’ve ever read pays some pithy homage to the staff being ‘their best asset’ … and yet when they actually have a chance to prove it, they are slower than a snail carrying his weekly shopping bags.
Payrises get held back …
Vacancies take an age to be filled …
Job offers take forever to be made …
Equipment is updated at a rate where it is already obsolete …
You name it, the majority of agencies do it.
Of course interms of what they ‘claim’ … you’d think you were watching a category that could take on Formula One for speed but far too often, it’s main obsession is with what has happened rather than what they can make happen.
My fave is when they come out in the press banging on about some fancy new job they’ve created – hiring someone with a title like CONTENT PLANNER, DESIGN PLANNER, DIGITAL DM STRATEGIST, INTERACTIVE CONTENT PLANNER – when underneath it all, it’s often very similar to a job someone else was doing before …
1 It became fashionable
2 A client would happily pay a premium for.
A perfect example of this is the rise of Channel and Content Planners.
Personally … and I’m sure quite a few people will disagree with me … I think they’re a load of wank.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s not the role I am criticising [though Content Planning does make me smile for all the wrong reasons] … it’s the fact that this was the sort of thing great Media Strategists were doing twenty years ago.
I have some very talented friends who are Channel and/or Content Planners and after much interrogation, none of them has been able to satisfy me they’re doing something dramatically different to when they were a Media Strategists, Planners or Heads Of Copy.
Far too often agencies talk the talk but don’t walk the walk … they’ve been banging on about media neutral ideas for decades and in the main failed miserably to make it happen.
OK … OK … not all agencies have failed and I have to acknowledge clients have played a major role in this lethargy, but it’s still sad the industry treats the creation of a video game [ie: for BK] as the second coming of communication!!!
You can bet your backside that next year they’ll be a billion entries into Cannes of Video Game solutions for clients … or environmental concepts … or Youtube only campaigns, it’s pathetic!
From a consumer perspective, trial and error hasn’t hurt Apple … exploration hasn’t destroyed Virgin … innovation is yet to undermine NIKE [if anything, it enhances their consumer appeal] and yet our industry – made up of all these supposed cutting-edge organisations – sits there waiting for someone else to make a ‘first move’ because they’re all too frightened incase it results in them being ridiculed by the industry at large.
All this results in is more HEADLINES about agencies opening on Second Life or creating a Content Division or starting an Interactive Department or investing in a new process methodology which is set to REVOLUTIONISE the advertising industry – even though the end result is the same old bland bollocks that has gone on time and time before.
Where has the ingenuity gone?
Where’s the bravery?
Where’s the experimentation?
Where’s the leadership?
And no, Kevin Roberts is not an acceptable response.
Look, I am not saying we should discard the old … far from it, there’s huge, huge, huge value in looking at the lessons of the past … and certainly not all agencies behave this way, however if the majority want industry to start valuing them again, maybe they should start to include speed, exploration and bravery back into their ‘equation’ – because if all they do is continue to look through the ‘rear view mirror’, they’re just walking steadily towards their own demise.