Some really great thoughts and ideas. And probably the best way to address the issues (i.e. randomly). It's a mug's game seeking the "new model". The new model will be whatever works and is entirely unpredictable.
I think your best advice is to do one thing (or a few related things) well, and stay small/nimble, both because that's what clients want and because as a business you are better able to respond to the evolving business environment.
"Confederation" is also an interesting idea. I worked for Scali McCabe Sloves through the 80s and that is essentially what Marvin Sloves put together. Independents that carried on their business as usual (and the network didn't expunge all traces of creativity and independent thought as happens in BDAs) and came together to share ideas or when there was some genuine help to be offered.
I think it will be slow going for this reason:
"All their baloney notwithstanding, the huge media buying conglomerates have commoditized media buying and it is becoming a price war."
The BDA's media department can get an ad on the air cheaper than our agency. Thus, we're beginning to see 5-6 year old spots of BDC being run again. This is cost cutting.
As costs continue to be cut, no one seems to think a way to cut costs is to be more nimble.
And for the record, I watched your video but didn't feel like I would get anything out of voting, so I didn't. The internet isn't special in marketing: if there's nothing in it for me, chances are I won't do it no matter how simple you make it.
Specializing is obvious but a trap. Like the age-old compromise between specialist and generalist: specialists learns more and more about less and less until they know everything about nothing; generalists learns less and less about more and more until they know nothing about everything.
Smart agencies and clients know what they can't do and outsource it, as obviously as outsourcing photography or printing, for example. Hiring brilliant freelancers works because you know you'll get good work at competitive costs and the freelance doesn't have his/her snout in the salary/benefits trough 24/7. Plus the uncertainty of the freelance life makes that person very competitive.
Guess how I know.
All good stuff. But maybe trying to fix the WHOLE thing is too big of a bite. And no one particularly cares about the whole thing, only their company, their agency.
Maybe the trick is to focus on what you can do really well, for clients who want that. And whom you like.
Otherwise it's way to big to get under your pencil.
How about specializing in picking a target, talking to that target a couple times and selling him/her some crap by offering them something they might want? Has that changed too?
This Ad world is passing me by.
Some interesting stuff there. SNE pretty much sums up our little shop. We're a small, independent creative company who don't get involved in 'peeling the brand onion' or other such powerpoint bullshit. We did a bit of contract work for BDAs in the first year, but now have a few of our own clients.
One of the barriers we sometimes face is that some clients just don't understand how such a small company can create the same creative output as the BDA's.
But a lot of clients are just looking for the good advertising ideas and smart people, and begrudge the normal agency shit they have to go through to get it.
Power to the SNE's!
Nimble is key. No more briefs, re-writes, briefs v2, v3, etc., content testing, approval, sign-off - then the really good, creative idea is two months old, and stale, and nothing has been done, and everyone's time has been wasted.
It's a problem for clients, agencies, and a process creative people - the ones leaving or avoiding the industry - hate.
Simplifiers, right Bob? SNE's can only have simplifiers.
Bob - a challenge for the bigger agencies is that convincing owners to go smaller means less money for them. I've found that some very smart people just can't get past that. If they can only look out 3 months at their agency business now, asking them to look out 2 or even 5 years causes them to short circuit.
Is the answer to the comment in the talent entry:
"You can work for a big, clumsy ad agency that is toiling for huge corporations and have dozens of dumb-as-dirt knuckleheads sticking their sweaty fingers into everything you do, or you can work for yourself, or a smaller entity, where you don't just use your imagination to sell things, you use it to actually create things."
simply that smaller = more creative?
Rich:
No. Obviously there are some very large agencies that are highly creative and some very small ones that are crap.
However, if you're a young talented person the odds of getting your work produced are way higher in a small organization.
Commenting by HaloScan
