Just before we started cynic, we got our hands on as many agencies creds decks as we could get. The point was we wanted to see how our ‘competition’ were positioning themselves so we could both learn about who they were and ensure what we did was not going to mimic anything that had already said or done.
We needn’t of worried.
The reality was the vast majority of agency creds all said the same thing.
Literally … the same thing.
Bar the logo in the bottom left/right hand corner and the case studies they showed, they all talked about how many offices they had, how many people they employed, their propriety tools, their effectiveness [which often was very questionable] and their management team.
And it went on.
And on and on and on …
Excessively long, contrived, mundane, corporate monotone, egotism aside … what shocked us most was how few talked about the value they placed on the quality of the work and their philosophy behind what made good work happen.
So when we came to creating our creds, the first page anyone saw was the image at the top of this post.
[For the record, it wasn’t that exact image, that’s my instagram ‘square’ pic of the 9 individual pieces of artwork that we had around the office that I only recently got my hands back on. Thanks Billy]
Now I am not denying it was a bit confronting.
And now – with experienced eyes – it smacks of trying a too hard to be noticed and different.
But the purpose of it was three-fold.
1 We wanted to ensure no one could mistake us for anyone else.
2 We wanted to make sure our work always represented our beliefs.
[Because we had read too many creds where the words didn’t match the output – indicating they were either delusionists or illusionists]
3 We wanted clients to know the majority of people they wanted to engage with, wanted them to leave them alone.
Part of that was because they had a ‘blanket’ approach to targeting – despite claiming otherwise.
Part of that was because they had a superficial/egotistical attitude towards why people would care.
Part of that was because they saw work simply as communication rather than building something bigger.
And while cynic has been dead for 8 years, I look at that image and think it’s still pretty relevant, which is pretty tragic, especially when you think about all the research, processes and tools adland likes to ‘big itself’ up about.
And that’s why I suggest to anyone looking to change agencies that before you make any decision – you should ask to see their creds.
Of course that shouldn’t be the only reason you choose a job, but seeing how they present themselves to others is possibly the quickest way to see what reality is truly like … especially when you filter it through the body of work they actually ended up putting out into the World.