Over the years of this blog, I’ve written a bunch of stuff about ad agencies.
Good.
Bad.
Ugly.
But among the rabble, there’s been a few where I’ve celebrated when an agency has taken a stance about it’s own standards and beliefs.
There was the classic ad Chiat Day put out after losing a pitch.
Or the AMV internal memo that was sent out to stop forgetting the standards of work.
Or the ‘revolution’ manifesto that HHCL wrote when they were in their pomp, punk prime.
Or the time we destroyed cynic’s cash cow to allow us to rebuild the company we loved.
But what is interesting with all these things is they appear after they realized they’d undermined their greatest weapon – their creativity – in a bid to be more profitable or to win another client or to keep a present client happy.
No bitching about clients.
No throwing stones at the competition.
A moment of self-reflection that offered scary clarity.
Of course money makes the World go round, but the older I get the more I realize that the moment you don’t care how you get it or what you spend it on means the quality of work commences its downhill trajectory. And while that doesn’t mean an agency will go bust [there’ll always be clients who choose price over quality] it does mean they will see their greatest talent walk out the door. And then, when that happens, you have lost all your value and been reduced to ‘supplier’ status.
Over the years there have been agencies who have realized this and fought against it.
Not just the oldies that I’ve mentioned above, but some of the new and exciting like Droga5 and Adam & Eve.
And lets not forget my beloved Wieden+Kennedy who – despite the odd wobble – fight for their lives to retain their standards and values in all they do.
But the thing is few actually come out and say they realized they made a mistake anymore.
Everything is kept inside their four walls and the only way you know something happened is through the work they then go on to create.
To be fair, that’s probably the wisest response but there is something powerful in someone acknowledging their faults and how they are going to make changes that move them forward.
For me that honesty is liberating. Exciting.
The reason for all this is that I recently read an ad that Fallon put out years and years ago.
It’s different to what I’ve talked about in this post because it wasn’t about where they had fucked up, but more about who they were going to be, because this ad talks about their philosophy … a philosophy that was the foundation of some of the best advertising ever produced.
If they put that out today – even if I didn’t know anything about them – I’d want to work for them, because while the proof of the pudding is in the eating, we shouldn’t forget most people want someone or something to believe in.
[Read it properly here]
